Terms

A

Acre: English unit of measure of land equaling 43,560 square feet or 10 square chains.  A square acre measures 208.7 feet on each side. 

Ad valorem tax: Taxes assessed by the local government on the basis of land or timber value. In Georgia, land is taxed annually and timber is taxed when it is sold or harvested.

Allowable Error: the amount of sampling error that can be tolerated without invalidating the usefulness of the statistical result.

Annosus root rot:  a fungus that kills trees by decaying the bark and wood of the roots and root collar.  It spreads most easily in the winter months during thinning or other management operations.

B

Backfire: A fire intentionally set to move against the wind and back into an area to suppress a wildfire or for management purposes. 

Bare Land Value (BLV): or Soil Expectation Value (SEV), measures the net present value of bare timberland if used in perpetual timber production, i.e. one rotation after another following a constant rotation length and the same silvicultural treatments. It is the present value of the net returns from all continuing series of rotations. 

Basal Area (BA): the cross-sectional area of all stems of a species or all stems in a stand measured at breast height and expressed as square feet per unit of land area. Basal area is used to measure stocking adequacy of a forest stand. 

Best management practices (bmp): A practice, or combination of practices, that is determined after problem assessment and examination of alternatives, to be most effective, practical means of preventing or reducing the amount of pollution generated by non-point sources to a level compatible with water quality. 

Biomass: Term used to describe woody plants marketed as fuel wood. The total volume of plant material excluding foliage growing on a given area of land. 

Board foot: A lumber measurement defined as being a piece of sawn wood measuring 1 inch X 1 foot X 1 foot. The term is also used as a measure when estimating the amount of lumber in trees, sawlogs, and veneer logs.

C

Chips: small pieces of wood used for fuel or paper making. 

Chip-n-saw:  timber product from mid-sized trees (8-11 in. diameter) that makes small dimension lumber and chips for fuel or paper production. A rectangular piece is cut from the center of a chip-n-saw log for lumber while the outer slabs are chipped.

Clearcut:  a harvesting method which removes all the trees (regardless of size) from an area.  After clearcutting, seedlings are commonly planted on site.

Clonal Seedlings: seedlings that are produced from one parent with identical genetic qualities, sometimes called varietals. 

Co-dominant trees:  trees with crowns forming the general level of crown cover and receiving full light from above, but little from the sides.

Controlled burning:  prescribed fire (Rx fire) is fire applied in a knowledgeable manner to forest fuels on a specific land area under selected weather conditions to accomplish predetermined, well-defined management objectives.

Cord:  a volume measure that, when cut and stacked, is a 4x4x8 feet, or 128 cubic feet of space.  A face cord or short cord is 4x8x the length of the wood (less than 4 feet) and is used for firewood.

Crook:  a defect in trees created by an abrupt bend.  Crooks must be removed before a tree is cut for lumber.

Crown:  the portion of a tree made of branches and foliage.

Cull Tree:  a live tree of merchantable size that is unmerchantable because of defect or decay.