VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

The Most Direct Link to Knowledge Workers in the Southeast Forest Economy

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT FAST-GROWING PLANTATIONS

Last November Ed Hurliman, Broken Bow, OK posted several very important questions on our Discussion Forum. They appear in boldface below, and our answers follow.

I have followed the LSP stand since planting and am always excited when more data is available. I still intend to make a trip to look at the stand myself. As a tree farmer who also logs and sells vendor wood, I am concerned about wide growth rings which are getting to be a problem in marketing wood. We are having trouble selling plantation wood 20-25 years old to be used for lumber. Even some of our plywood users are balking at plantation logs. How is the grade on the LSP?

We assume that the "trouble" you refer to is getting the same price as you get for other timber. In our sealed-bid sales so far, we have seen no price discrimination against timber from fast-growing plantations. No one can predict the future with certainty, but we base our guesses about it on the words of John F. Rasor, Vice President, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, from an interview of him published in our issue of October 1989, almost ten years ago:

"Until we can test and use many of the fast-grown trees, we cannot say what they will be used for. I am a firm believer that Industry tools up to use the resource available rather than growing trees to meet the present mill requirements. So if I am right, we will find a use for [fast-grown] trees, be it pulpwood, OSB, or some newly developed product not even invented at this writing. Plywood and lumber will probably use increased amounts of this kind of raw material too."

And, even though quick growth is a problem, I still try to grow as much wood as fast as I can on every acre. With the amount of wood now standing on the LSP, you have a large nutrient drain. Do you plan to fertilize? If not, what impact do you anticipate on the next rotation? We began fertilization work 6 years ago and have increased growth over 25% on some stands. Do you think fertilization might improve on the already fantastic growth on the LSP?

It certainly takes plenty of nutrition to add more to the heavy volume now standing on LSP. There is now no sign of a lack of nutrition. As you can see elsewhere in this issue, the trees are still growing as predicted long ago, and they look extremely healthy. If there were any doubt about this, we would check on it by leaf area index and foliar analysis. Since we intend to harvest this crop within the next four years, we won’t fertilize it because there might not be enough time to capture the benefits.

When we plant the next crop, the site will contain a vast amount of organic matter from roots, stumps, and tops of this crop, far more than the little seedlings can utilize. Unless research now in progress indicates otherwise, we think that nutrition in the site will be more than adequate until after the first thinning about Age 12. We’ll see. The good thing about fertilizer is that you can tell when it’s needed and how big its effect will be. Whenever we learn anything new, you’ll read about it in this newsletter.