Terms

Management Plan:  Management plans describe the conditions of the forest: species, size, volume, and quality of the standing timber.  Plans usually list a recommended sequence of operations to achieve landowner goals and objectives.  

Management Regime: forest management plans that outline specific actions and times for a stand.

Merchantable height:  the height of a merchantable tree from a stump height to a point where the trunk diameter is too small to obtain a particular product.  The product cut from the timber determines the merchantable height.

Merchantable timber:  a sand of timber of sufficient size and volume per acre to be harvest profitably. 

Monoculture: forest stand that contains only one species to provide better growth and yield. 

Mortality:  death or destruction of forest trees by competition, disease, insects, fire or other factors.

Multiple use forest:  a forest managed for two or more objectives, such as timber production, forage production, wildlife habitat and recreation.

N

NBSK, Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft: is the paper industry’s benchmark grade of pulp. 

NCREIF Timberland Index: a quarterly time series composite return measure of investment performance of a large pool of individual timber properties acquired in the private market for investment purposes only. 

National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF): an association of institutional real estate professionals that acts as collector, processor, validator and disseminator of real estate performance information.

Natural stand:  a stand of trees resulting from natural seed fall or sprouting.

Non-commercial species:  tree species of poor form or inferior quality that normally do not develop into trees suitable for wood products.

O

OSB, Oriented Strand Board: a type of engineered structural panel made from low- value wood raw material; strands, or long chips, of wood are glued together in a specific orientation to form panels. OSB is used in construction and directly competes with plywood. 

Overstocking:  when a forest contains too many trees per acre.  Overstocking reduces growth, causes trees to die and makes the stand more susceptible to disease and insects.

P

Pesticides:  chemicals used to control forest pests.  These include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.

Plantation: large artificially established forests where fast growing trees are grown for sale, plantations take advantage of the economies of scale. Plantations are usually monocultures. 

Poles: a tree where the bole is straight and has minimal defects and taper.

Precommercial thinning:  a thinning that produces no marketable timber but incurs time and/or money cost to conduct.  Thinning removes poorly formed, diseased and unmerchantable trees from the stand to allow more sunlight and growing space for the remaining trees.

Prescribed fire:  see controlled burn.

Prism Points: sample points where a glass wedge or prism of known angle is used to estimate basal area of a forest stand from which volumes can be estimated. 

Pulpwood: timber product from small diameter (6 in. & up) and/or low quality trees used for fuel, paper, or fiber production. 

R

REIT, Real Estate Investment Trust: a tax designation for an entity investing in real estate that exempts income from corporate taxes, although shareholders must pay capital gains tax on dividends. In return, REITS must: (1) distribute at least 90% of annual income as dividends to shareholders; (2) have at least 75% of assets invested in real estate, mortgage loans, shares in other REITs, cash, or government securities; (3) derive at least 75% of income from rents, mortgage interest, or gains from the sale of real property; (4) has at least 100 shareholders with less than 50 % of the outstanding shares owned by five or fewer shareholders.

Reforestation:  reestablishment of a forest by planting or seeding on a cutover tract of land or managing stands for natural regeneration.