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,Sv, United States 

 Department of 

 Ss ~-^ Agriculture 



Forest Service 



Northeastern Forest 

 Experiment Station 



Research 

 Note NE-318 



Biomass Statistics 



for the Northern United States 



Eric H. Wharton 

 Gerhard K. Raile 



Abstract 



The USDA Forest Service now estimates biomass during periodic resource 

 inventories. Such biomass estimates quantify more of the forest resource than 

 do traditional volume inventories that concentrate on tree boles. More than 48 

 percent of the aboveground tree biomass in the northern United States can be 

 found in woody material outside of the boles. Tree biomass in the Northeastern 

 and North Central regions of the United States is compared by state. 



Forests today must supply more 

 than wood for conventional products 

 such as sawlogs and pulpwood. Con- 

 straints placed upon the economy in 

 the 1980's will force the forest prod- 

 ucts industry to use more of the avail- 

 able supply of timber to increase 

 production and decrease costs. Al- 

 ready, timber harvesters are respond- 

 ing by producing whole-tree chips that 

 may be converted to energy, pulp and 

 paper products, reconstituted wood 

 products, or agricultural uses. 



The use of all woody material 

 above the ground is becoming a com- 

 mon practice. Wood from the tops of 

 trees and from poorly formed, rotten, 

 and small trees once considered un- 

 usable is now removed. This increased 

 use of our forest resource has created 

 a need to determine the total supply 

 of wood fiber. 



In response, the USDA Forest 

 Service (1981) has estimated the sup- 



ply of live, aboveground biomass on 

 timberland in the United States. The 

 Northeastern and North Central For- 

 est Experiment Stations cooperated 

 in this national effort to evaluate the 

 net green weight of woody material in 

 all live trees above the ground (ex- 

 cluding foliage). We found that almost 

 a third of the nation's tree biomass is 

 located in the northern United States. 



Northern Biomass 



More than 11.6 billion green tons 

 of biomass grow on timberland in the 

 four sections of the North (Table 1). 

 The largest amount, 4.0 billion green 

 tons, is in the Middle Atlantic sec- 

 tion. The remainder is evenly distrib- 

 uted between the New England, Lake 

 States, and Central States. Six of the 

 states— Maine, New York, Pennsyl- 

 vania, West Virginia, Michigan, and 

 Kentucky — each contain more than 

 1 billion green tons. 



The Northeastern States 



In the New England section, 58 

 percent of the total tree biomass is in 

 Maine. Of its 1.4 billion green tons, 

 almost half is material that is in tree 

 boles. The remaining 0.7 billion green 

 tons is from unconventional sources 

 of fiber including tree tops, trees less 

 than 5.0 inches dbh, and cull trees. 



The biomass in tops consistently 

 averages about 17 percent of the total 

 biomass in the New England section; 

 the proportion of biomass in cull trees 

 differs considerably. Only in Rhode 

 Island and Vermont are cull trees a 

 significant proportion, representing 

 about a quarter of the total biomass 

 in each of these two states. 



In the Middle Atlantic section, 

 Pennsylvania, New York, and West 

 Virginia account for nearly 89 percent 

 of the total tree biomass. While Penn- 

 sylvania's 1.5 billion green tons repre- 

 sent the greatest amount, only 0.6 

 billion green tons come from uncon- 

 ventional sources. This is only 39 

 percent of the total biomass in the 

 State— lower than every Middle At- 

 lantic State except Delaware. 



The proportion of biomass in tree 

 tops is lower in the Middle Atlantic 

 States than in New England by 2 per- 

 cent. Even so, as much as 1.9 billion 

 green tons, or 46 percent of the sec- 

 tion's biomass, are from unconven- 

 tional sources and theoretically are 

 available for fiber-based products. 



Received by: £> 

 Indexing Branch 



