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LABOR, MACHINE AND CHEMICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPROVING WOODLANDS ON THE SOUTHERN INDIANA FORAGE FARM
Research Progress Report 18 May 1962, Project 691
J. C. Callahan, Department of Forestry and Conservation
The 18 woodlands on the Forage Farm are considered to be typical of those found on sandstone-shale derived soils in southern Indiana. In order to improve the productivity of these woodlands and the quality of timber produced, a great deal of effort has been expended on timber stand improvement activities . For example, poor growing and defective trees have been girdled or poisoned if they had no economic potential because of form, species, or proportion of cull volume they contained. Grapevines, which affect tree quality and growth, have been chemically treated. Cleared lands no longer able to produce agronomic crops profitably have been planted with tree seedlings.
During the course of these operations, considerable data were obtained on the requirements necessary to accomplish specific objectives. The data presented, therefore, represent actual experience and observation. Although it was impossible to maintain strict research control on activities which were essentially production efforts, the results are believed to be representative of the inputs required to improve similar areas of southern Indiana forest land and are provided as a means of gauging the efficiency of improvement operations on other lands. The work was performed by members of the Forage Farm work crew using, for the most part, machines and tools common to most farming operations.
Improvement Cuts
Improvement cuts are designed to silviculturally improve the composition and character of forest stands by removing trees
of undesirable form, species and condition. These trees are silvicultural and economic liabilities to the woodland owner. The remaining crop trees benefit from the additional quantities of light, moisture, soil nutrients, and growing space available to them.
In order not to disrupt future periodic harvests, it was necessary that improvement cuts made in the Forage Farm woodlands be "light." Less than 450 board feet were removed from the average acre which represented about 25 percent of the average volume per acre. The 28 logging operations observed, as a result, had high costs per unit of volume harvested associated with them. The input requirements and board foot outputs of sawlogs are detailed in Table 1. Direct production costs included 23.9 hours of labor,
3.4 hours of chain saw time, 4.4 hours of tractor time, and 1.5 hours of log-truck time for each 1, 000 board feet, the average input per acre was about 43 percent of these input requirements. It should also be noted that the administration of the cut, maintenance of equipment, and transportation of workers required significant quantities of time.
Machine Girdling
Cull trees and other undesirable trees can be eliminated from woodland stands in several ways. One effective way is to use a mechanical tree girdler. A smooth girdle-one-inch wide and about one-inch in depth is produced by the machine. Power girdling has the advantage of being faster than either ax girdling or frilling. A 12-inch tree can be machine girdled in about 20 seconds and a 24-inch tree in about 40 seconds. The
PURDUE UNIVERSITY • Agricultural Experiment Station • Lafayette, Indiana