Panorama Instructions: Click on the
panorama, and press the keyboard Spacebar to view Hotspots (click them
for tree info), press the "A" key to zoom in, "Z" to
zoom out. To pan around, left click the mouse and drag.
The Appalachian forest stand shown
here occupies a broad, flat ridge in Montgomery County, Virginia. It
has been repeatedly cut using high-grading practices. The valuable trees
have been cut and poor quality trees have been left to grow. As you can
see, the forest looks natural, but as you pan around, select individual
trees and see what their characteristics are. While there are some larger
trees that could be sold for sawtimber,
the quality listed for most is pulpwood.
This indicates that they are not as valuable as they could be if they
were of better quality (i.e. less limbs low on the tree, no rot at the
base of the tree, etc.). Also, there are not many trees in this panorama.
The forest is 70-80 years old, but it simply does not have the number
and quality of trees that a stand which has been well-managed would have.
Based on this sampling point, this poor stand would yield only 24 cords of
pulpwood and 650 board
feet of lumber!
The majority of the species are oak, but most are scarlet
oak, which does not typically live much longer than 70-80 years.
As a result many of the trees in this forest will begin to decline
soon. The stand is not of high value, especially considering its age,
and is not growing at its full potential.
* Growth data represented here is based on one prism
point sample within the harvested stand. Monetary data is based on 2003
dollars and timber values. Actual payments to landowners are generally
50% of gross payments, but vary widely with distance to mills, terrain,
harvest size, etc.
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