Impacts of thinning strategies on financial returns from yellow-poplar stands
1999
Pelkki, M.H.
In the central and southern Appalachian region of the United States, yellow-poplar is an important timber resource for the sawmill and composite wood industries. A dynamic programming optimization algorithm was used to evaluate financial returns from various thinning strategies on yellow-poplar stands. Improvement thinning was found to increase long-term returns more than any other thinning strategy on most combinations of site and stand quality. Only on a high site index stand with a stem distribution dominated by high quality trees was thinning from above found to be the most valuable strategy. When stands have low or average stein quality distributions, the typical rotation has one to two thinnings removing 20% to 35% of the basal area in each thinning. Timing of the initial improvement thinning ranges from 22-32 yr, and occurs earlier in higher site index stauds. In stands of high stem quality, one to five thinnings removing 20% to 40% of the basal area are employed and rotation length increases as production shifts to sawtimber. Stands with higher site index and stein quality distributions have higher numbers of thinnings. This research demonstrates the value of intermediate treatments in improving financial returns from yellow-poplar.
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