WHAT A THIRD-ROW, OPERATOR-SELECTED THINNING DID TO AN 18-YEAR PLANTATION
Using PTAEDA2V, we have often pointed out the sins of thinning by removing rows on an arbitrary pattern
plus trees from adjoining rows selected by the operator of the felling machine. A client with land in
Alabama asked us what to do with her 21-year-old plantation that was thinned three years ago by removing
every third row plus trees from selected by the operator from the other two. Our first step was to measure
the trees now standing on 10 systematically-located 1/10-acre plots. Here are data from this
measurement:
| |
DBH |
|
| Plot |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
# Trees |
Pulp-quality |
| 1 |
|
1 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
1 |
|
|
20 |
65% |
| 2 |
|
|
4 |
3 |
4 |
12 |
4 |
1 |
|
|
28 |
54% |
| 3 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
1 |
8 |
2 |
3 |
|
|
|
24 |
67% |
| 4 |
|
1 |
1 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
|
|
17 |
47% |
| 5 |
|
|
|
4 |
|
1 |
|
2 |
1 |
1 |
9 |
67% |
| 6 |
|
|
|
|
1 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
|
1 |
9 |
56% |
| 7 |
|
1 |
|
5 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
|
|
16 |
19% |
| 8 |
|
1 |
1 |
6 |
3 |
5 |
1 |
2 |
|
|
19 |
37% |
| 9 |
|
|
2 |
1 |
2 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
1 |
|
17 |
47% |
| 10 |
|
|
|
3 |
5 |
1 |
11 |
2 |
|
|
22 |
50% |
| /Acre |
2 |
7 |
16 |
30 |
34 |
38 |
36 |
14 |
2 |
2 |
181 |
51% |
To appreciate what this "thinning" will do to our client's future crop, look first at the
51% in the lower right corner. Then also consider that, three years after the "thinning"
when the stand is now 21 years old, only 4 trees per acre have reached the 11- and 12-inch DBH classes.
In what is regarded by us and most landowners as an operation to set the stage for a bountiful harvest,
this operator took not only one-third of her sawtimber-quality trees in the cut rows, but also so many
of the others that 51% of her remaining trees will never produce anything but pulpwood. They will never
generate the huge value increase that comes when small but high-quality trees grow large enough to
produce sawtimber.
So what is she to do? We estimate that selling the timber will produce net cash flows of $430 now and
$661 four years from now, a compound annual return of 11.4% from the trees. Not bad, if her land under
them weren't tied up. But since it is and can probably be sold for about $500 per acre without trees, her
return will fall below 6%, so she would be better off with a high-grade bond.
As we have pointed out many, many times, selecting trees to be removed in thinning a plantation is too
important to surrender to someone whose primary interest is getting the most wood for the least price.
|
