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Harvest Quantities

Forests in the US South produce a variety of hardwood and softwood timber products. Softwood products dominate production with 69 percent of harvest output in 2001, the latest year for which comprehensive data are available (Figure 1). Among product classes, sawlogs and pulpwood products account for 41 and 42 percent of total harvest, respectively. Softwood sawlogs are the largest product class (30 percent), followed by softwood pulpwood (27 percent) and hardwood pulpwood (15 percent). These three product classes represented roughly 72 percent of harvests in 2001 and have represented at least 68 percent of harvests since the 1970’s (Figure 1).1

Figure 1. Roundwood harvests in the US South by product (Sources: USDA Forest Service Timber Product Output Reports).

Timber harvests from southern forests grew steadily throughout much of the last half of the twentieth century (Figure 1). Between 1962 and 1996, annual harvesting more than doubled from about 4 billion cubic feet (bcf) to almost 10 bcf, while the product mix has remained relatively constant. Pulpwood’s share of production has ranged from 39 to 44 percent and softwood has ranged from 64 to 71 percent of total product output, with no consistent trends.

Charting total production on an annual basis reveals that growth in harvests for all products has been very steady, with only a few exceptions (Figure 2). For example, output dipped during a brief recession in the mid 1970’s. Growth in harvests was at its strongest from 1982 thru 1998, with output expanding at a rate of 3.3 percent per year. After this long period of strong growth, total harvest quantity fell by approximately 9 percent between 1998 and 2002. Harvest quantity in 2002 was approximately equal to harvest levels in 1995. This represents the largest and longest downturn in harvesting over the historical period (1952-2002).

Figure 2. Roundwood production in the US South, selected products (Sources: USFS Timber Product Output Reports, see Appendix A for explanation of interpolation procedures).

Trends in the three largest product classes (Figure 3) show that the harvest decline between 1998 and 2002 was largely explained by reductions in pulpwood production. Softwood and hardwood pulpwood harvests declined by 11 and 21 percent, respectively, while softwood sawtimber harvests were stable. We were unable to construct an annual time series of hardwood sawlog production (the fourth largest product class) but the periodic data (Figure 1) suggest hardwood sawtimber harvests were also relatively stable over this period.

Figure 3. Roundwood production in the US South, selected products (Sources: USDA Forest Service Timber Product Output Reports; see Appendix 1 for explanation of interpolation procedures).

1 Harvest quantity data are derived from Forest Service Timber Product Output reports (see Appendix A for details on data sources).

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modified: 07-Feb-2017
created by: John M. Pye
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