Back to Newsletter Abstracts of Publications Ivan L. Eastin, Christine L. Lane, Roger D. Fight, Jamie Barbour. An Assessment of the Industrial Markets for Softwood Clearwood Lumber. Forest Products Journal Vol. 48, No. 11/12: 48-54 (1998) The purpose of this project was to assess market opportunities for second-growth clearwood lumber by identifying industry segments that currently utilize clearwood lumber and determining whether alternative markets will continue to exist for clearwood lumber produced from intensively managed forests in the Pacific Northwest. A survey of industrial lumber remanufacturers was conducted in 1995 to identify: 1) those industry segments that currently utilize clearwood lumber as a raw material input for their manufacturing process; and 2) those clearwood lumber attributes that are perceived to be important by managers within specific segments of the remanufacturing industry. Frequencies and mean responses were used to analyze the demographic information as well as the softwood lumber attribute ratings. A factor analysis was used to reduce the original 16 lumber attributes to 4 factors: timber quality, manufacturing properties, mechanical properties, and economic/price characteristics. A perceptual map of the survey results indicates that managers in the door and windows industries attached more importance to timber quality and manufacturing properties when purchasing softwood lumber than did managers in the other industry segments. Respondents in the wood remanufacturing industry appeared to value reliability of supply, price, and price stability over other softwood lumber attributes. This would seem to indicate that these manufacturers could not, or would not, continue to accept higher relative prices and rapid price fluctuations for clear- wood softwood lumber.   Timothy G. Greoire. Design-Based and Model-Based Inference in Survey Sampling: Appreciating the Difference. Can. J. For. Res. Vol. 28, No. 10: 1429-1447 (1998) Model-based ideas in finite-population sampling have received renewed discussion in recent years. Their relationship to the classical ideas in sampling theory do not appear to be universally well understood by samplers in applied disciplines such as forestry, and ecology more broadly. The two inferential paradigms are contrasted, and explanations are supplemented with examples of discrete as well as continuously distributed populations. The treatment of spatial structure is also examined.   C.E. Prescott and S.M. Brown. Five-Year Growth Response of Western Red Cedar, Western Hemlock, and Amabilis Fir to Chemical and Organic Fertilizers. Can. J. For. Res. 28(9): 1328-1334 (1998) The hypothesis that growth responses of conifers to application of organic fertilizers are of longer duration than responses to chemical fertilizers was tested in two trials on northern Vancouver Island. Both trials were in 10-year-old plantations of conifers on a salal-dominated cutover known to have poor N supply. In Trial 1, western red cedar, western hemlock, and amabilis fir were treated with municipal biosolids at 542 kg N-ha-1 and 162 kg P-ha-1 or ammonium nitrate and triple superphosphate at 225 kg N-ha-1 and 75 kg P-ha-1. Height increments in the 5 years following applications were two to five times greater in plots treated with either biosolids or fertilizer than in untreated plots. In Trial 2, western red cedar was treated with fertilizer at 225 kg N-ha-1 and 75 kg P-ha-1 or the following organic amendments at 504-610 kg N-ha-1: biosolids, biosolids and pulp and paper sludge, fish silage and wood ash, fish silage with wood ash and pulp and paper sludge, and wood ash alone. Height increments in the 5 years following applications were similar in all treated plots (except wood ash alone). These experiments provided evidence for sustained growth responses in plots treated with organic fertilizers compared with those treated with chemical fertilizer.   L.M. Trummer, P.E. Hennon, E.M. Hansen, and P.S. Muir. Modeling The Incidence And Severity of Hemlock Dwarf Mistletoe in 110-Year-Old Wind-Disturbed Forests in Southeast Alaska. Can. J. For. Res. 28: No. 10 1501-1508 (1998) A model was developed to predict the severity of dwarf mistletoe in western hemlock trees that developed within forests of Southeast Alaska that experienced near-catastrophic windthrow in the late 1800s. The model suggests that the degree of dwarf mistletoe severity on western hemlock trees was significantly and positively correlated with levels of dwarf mistletoe infection and basal area (m2/ha) in large and small residual trees that survived the wind disturbance. No significant relationships were found between severity level and any other factors, including site productivity, density of coexisting Sitka spruce, or slope. The model demonstrates the overriding importance of infected residual trees to predict future severity of dwarf mistletoe; greater size and infection level of residual trees results in greater dwarf mistletoe levels on regenerating hemlock crop trees. The model, derived from 76 plots on Kuiu Island, was tested in 18 plots on Chichagof Island, providing a preliminary validation. Slower rates of dwarf mistletoe spread and intensification in forests of southeastern Alaska, as compared with similar coastal forests south of Alaska, provide an opportunity for managers to manipulate the parasite to desired levels in managed forests.   0. Garcia. Estimating Top Height With Variable Plot Sizes. Can. J. For. Res. 28: No. 10 1509-1517 (1998) Conventional top height estimates are biased if the area of the sample plot differs from that on which the definition is based. Sources of bias include a sampling selection effect and spatial autocorrelation. The problem was studied in relation to the use of data sets with varying spatial detail for modelling plantation growth. Improved top height estimators, developed taking into account the selection effect, eliminated the bias. Bias was reduced, but not eliminated completely, when the estimators were tested using more highly autocorrelated eucalypt data.   Hubert Sterba and Ralph L. Amateis Crown Efficiency in a Loblolly Pine Spacing Experiment. Can. J. For. Res. 28: No. 9 1344-1351 (1998) Crown efficiency was first defined by Assmann as individual volume increment per unit of crown projection area. He hypothesized that within a given crown class, smaller crowns are more efficient because their ratio between crown surface and horizontal crown projection is higher. Data from a loblolly pine spacing experiment were used to test if this hypothesis also holds in young loblolly pine stands and, if so, to determine if it explains the increment differences between spacings in the spacing experiment. Using individual tree height relative to plot dominant height to describe crown class, within-plot regression showed that crown efficiency decreased with crown size for trees below dominant height. This relationship was much less pronounced than indicated from Assmann’s examples, although the crown surface to crown projection ratio behaved the same way as Assmann had hypothesized. Crown efficiency as well as the crown surface to crown projection are ratio decreased with increasing density. Basal area increment per hectare increased until total crown closure approached 130% and then stayed constant. This major impact of total crown coverage brings into question the usefulness of crown efficiency as an indicator for unit area growth.   Andrew J. Plantinga. The Optimal Timber Rotation: An Option Value Approach. Forest Science 44 (2) 192-202 (1998) Previous analyses of the timber rotation problem under price uncertainty find that timber owners can increase the expected values of their stands by using a reservation price policy that exploits stochastic varations in prices. This result is found when the process govering prices is stationary and with nonstationary prices when there are fixed costs. This paper highlights the role of option values in influencing the optimal timing of harvests. In this context, the option value is a premium over the expected net present value of a timber stand reflecting the opportunity cost of harvesting now and foregoing the option to delay harvest until information on future stand values is revealed. With stationary prices, option values arise from two sources of forthcoming information: the level of the stumpage price relative to the long-term mean and the stand value relative to fixed costs. With nonstationary prices, option values are associated only with the latter information. This paper demonstrates analytically that reservation price policies act as a mechanism for incorporating the option value into the calculus of the optimal rotation length. Numerical simulations provide further insights into the effects of option values on rotation lengths, expected stand values, and reservation prices.   The CFR home page is also a good source for other forestry links. It can be reached by going to: http://www.cfr.washington.edu/If you have any links, articles or abstracts you would like to see included in the SMC newsletter, please e-mail them to: moshea@u.washington.edu   SMC Home SMC PublicationsEvents CalendarStaff and Members Other Web Sites College of Forestry Top of Page