The outcome and economics of operator select to manage brush and thin longleaf pine stands

Brett Lawrence , Jeremy Stovall, Matthew McBroom

We present a case study where loggers thinned and managed brush in longleaf pine stands that went unmanaged for a lengthy period in Trinity County, Texas, U.S.A. Stands were overstocked and had a dense, shrubby understory from years of fire exclusion. Our main objectives were to compare the outcomes of loggers selecting trees to thin, or “operator select”, versus timber marking, and whether they were different when attempting to create specific stand structure; additionally, we worked closely with loggers to manage brush in place of traditional forestry mulching. This comparison of management strategies is important, because it provided an opportunity for evaluating whether less cost-intensive approaches could accomplish favorable stand outcomes where longleaf pine restoration was the focus. Fourteen inventory plots were sampled pre-thinning, with half marked and the other half left unmarked and harvested by operator select methods. We measured no significant difference in basal area, trees per hectare, quadratic mean diameter, or volume at marked and unmarked plots. Also, QMD increased across all plots, longleaf dominance increased, woody vegetation decreased significantly, and we saw some herbaceous groundcover reestablishment. Our results indicate that close monitoring and feedback with loggers allowed us to circumvent an estimated $194.94 US per hectare cost for timber marking and $1,123.82 US per hectare for traditional mulching services. This amounted to an estimated $923.29 US per hectare reduction in project cost to create open longleaf pine structure. Where thinning prescriptions are straightforward, cost savings can likely be realized in longleaf pine restoration projects using this approach but at the requirement of providing consistent, time-intensive oversight to loggers.