Forest Industry Research Programs 



Timber Management 



Many forest-products 

 companies carry out 

 significant individual 

 research efforts on a 

 continuing basis. The nature 

 of this research reflects the 

 concerns and interests of 

 the individual companies 

 both in the matter of 

 environmental impact of 

 various silvicultural practices 

 and timber productivity. 



For many years, the 

 important segments of the 

 industry have been 

 like-minded in their 

 cooperative efforts in 

 pursuing both basic and 

 applied research in 

 genetics, fertilization, 

 nursery practices, plantation 

 spacing and thinning, 

 smoke management, 

 harvesting, site preparation, 

 insect and disease control, 

 and other silvicultural 

 practices. Industry has 

 underwritten its commitment 

 through funding as well as 

 active field and laboratory 

 participation with academic 

 institutions and the USDA 

 Forest Service's forest 

 experiment stations. 



A prime concern of the 

 industry is the constant 



and complex, changing 

 nature of the timber 

 inventory in the South. An 

 accurate data base of timber 

 growth and removals within 

 relatively small geographic 

 areas is a must for industrial 

 planning. As a result, the 

 industry contributes both 

 money and manpower to 

 the Forest Service's survey 

 efforts and maintains a 

 constant demand for 

 decreasing the time cycle 

 and increasing the 

 information included in 

 these periodic surveys. 

 Present surveys, taken at 

 10-year intervals, are still 

 producing surprises, which 

 are anathema to corporate 

 planners. The Forest Service 

 and individual companies 

 employ projection 

 techniques that attempt to 

 annually update the most 

 recent surveys with 

 reasonably good results, 

 but they are not satisfactory 

 substitutes for good 

 on-the-ground survey data. 



Perhaps one of the greatest 

 research efforts undertaken 

 by the industry is in the 

 field of tree improvement. 

 For 29 years, the North 

 Carolina State 

 University-Industry 

 Cooperative Tree 



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