Are You Maximizing Potential During Reforestation?

Common responses when landowners discuss options for reforestation are, “I will never reap the benefits of the investment” or “I want to minimize costs because it will be so long before I can harvest.” Every situation is unique. Landowners must consider time frame, capital availability and allocation, current and future ownership arrangements, market dynamics, and other objectives that may or may not be financial. Did you know that there are opportunities for shortening the rotation age (date of final harvest) of a timber stand? How complicated can it be? Trees are planted and the owner waits for many years until the timber is suitable for harvesting. Sounds straight forward, however several factors are at play when planning and implementing a reforestation project. Let’s take a deeper dive into these considerations.

Species.  While the site conditions such as soils, topography, and drainage certainly dictate the species chosen at establishment, landowner objectives also drive the ultimate decision on species selection. What is the real motivation for establishing a stand of timber? Is it strictly the performance of the investment? Are wildlife habitat concerns equally important? Is some other non-timber product like pine straw a factor in the investment strategy? Are aesthetics of the timber stand crucial to long-term success? These questions embody the landowner’s vision and goals for the site. Site conditions at times limit options for species selection. Nutrient deficient sites may require slower-growing species that survive in harsher conditions. Sites prone to periods of flooding require species that can best withstand inundation. For most reforestation projects, species selection is the first decision to be considered, and it facilitates the decision-making process for the other components covered below.

Site Preparation.  Although a clear-cut area planned for reforestation may appear to be a clean slate, Mother Nature is never at rest and awaits new opportunities to utilize space and resources. Site preparation techniques must be tailored to address the species that will occupy this “clean slate” and ultimately compete with the newly planted trees. What are the primary species to control? Can they be controlled with an herbicide application? What mixture of herbicides will address the species of concern? Will mechanical site preparation be necessary to address certain species? Is burning before planting an option for the site? Does the site’s hydrology require physical amending to prevent flooding of seedlings? These are just a few of the considerations that must be evaluated months before a seedling is ever planted. Research indicates that appropriate site preparation will increase volume production and reduce a stand’s rotation age by several years. Insufficient site preparation often results in additional costs within ten years of establishment to prevent the complete loss of the investment. It is imperative to consider the minimum, necessary site preparation requirements for the establishment of a timber stand, but it is wise to consider what your budget may allow above and beyond the bare necessities.

Seedling Genetics.  Genetic improvement in seedlings began in the middle of the twentieth century and has now reached a level that allows landowners and foresters many options for improving performance. Some of the tree characteristics favored when making selections are quite intuitive such as stem straightness and growth rate, but have you ever thought about breeding a tree so that the angle of the branches creates smaller knots upon natural pruning? Have you ever considered that selecting a top performer in growth that is prone to specific diseases in your geographic area may prevent your investment from ever maximizing its genetic potential? Genetics selections are generally available to match most considerations including budget, geographic location, and market opportunities. Proper selections can improve your investment’s performance by at least thirty to forty percent, but a proper investment in genetics may not mean the most expensive seedlings. In some geographic regions of the US Southeast timber markets are very limited, so choosing the most expensive seedlings that have “all the bells and whistles” is a waste of your budget that could be allocated to another component of the reforestation project. Working closely with your forestry consultant to determine the appropriate investment in genetically improved seedling stock will help ensure you are maximizing potential.

The old adage about “cutting corners” during the establishment of a stand of timber is not justifiable when we have the ability to influence so many components and ultimately reduce the amount of time to achieve financial return on the investment. By carefully evaluating species, site preparation, and the genetic quality of the seedling stock selected, the rotation age of a timber stand can be reduced substantially while additionally improving the stand quality. While these three components are most important, other options should be considered. For example, fertilization and post-establishment herbicide applications can increase growth and yield, shorten rotation length, and enhance return on investment in some instances.

While foresters often joke about gauging success during reforestation by observing, “green side up and roots in the ground” when referring to seedlings, this does little more than generate a laugh.  Decisions during the establishment of a stand of timber should be carefully considered with the same due diligence that any investment would be given.  These decisions should be made to maximize the effectiveness of the available budget, should be tailored specifically to landowner objectives, and should integrate the different components of the project discussed here to utilize the full potential of the site.  Let’s change the narrative from, “I’ll never reap the benefits of the investment” to “how can I reduce the rotation age of my investment and generate returns as soon as possible.”  Through an understanding of these dynamic systems, opportunities to improve performance are more available now than ever before.

 

Cloud Computing Part II – Meeting the increasing demand for useful information

By Mike Berzinis II, RF, CSM

In this post, we share practical ways cloud computing is helping forestry and natural resources organizations function in the digital age.   

The future of business will be information driven.

Business owners and managers are experiencing rapidly increasing demands for information – a trend that’s expected to continue.

A successful strategy for information supports growth, the ability to work from anywhere (like necessitated during COVID), the delivery of new services for existing customers or simply to increase employee quality of life by reducing tedious data entry.

Data is like a green log, information is like lumber which is ready to use.

Data rich and information poor.

Data which does not function as “useful” information for answers and decisions is a source of frustration and lost time. The quote “Data rich and information poor” (Waterman, R. 1982) refers to being rich with data which is not easily turned into information of value.

You may be information poor if your systems formed incrementally over time where the parts do not function together as a whole (e.g. they’re fragmented).

Are your personal digital photos “useful information” or just data?

Digital photos (data) on a hard drive in a desk drawer are of limited use, whereas photos on a smart phone are easily used by just about anyone.  A digital photo taken with a smart phone has utility which was difficult to “picture” 15 years ago when most people had point and shoot cameras.  For example, digital photos on a smart phone can:

  • Be shared with others through various social media like Facebook and Instagram.
  • Be stored in one place (you guessed it, in the cloud!).
  • Be accessed securely from anywhere via a user account.
  • Be texted directly to loved ones.

Smart devices are fundamentally powered by cloud computing.

How can businesses use their data like photos on a smartphone?

Would business data generate greater value if it were easily kept up to date and could be shared? While business systems are more complex than photos, many of the underlying digital capabilities for photos can be applied to meeting the growing information demands of businesses.   Such examples include:

  • Team members access a single, authoritative source of business information.
  • Staff with any technical ability level can share and get answers to every day questions like “what is the status of Smith Tract thinning job?”.
  • Data entry and manual processes are reduced and even eliminated.
  • Information can be shared securely inside or outside an organization.
  • Teams access real time information on smart devices wherever work is done: from home, the truck or the field.
  • Information security and trust standards are in place to reduce risks of hacking and ransomware.

In Conclusion:

Yesterday’s technology and approaches cannot meet today’s or tomorrow’s business information needs.  “Redefining forest technology” is about having choices for technologies where the parts fit into a whole to maximize the reach and utility of information assets.

SFC is a trusted technology partner and leading cloud solutions provider for numerous wood products and forest management organizations across the southeast.

Mike leads SFC’s Geospatial business line and is a military veteran with 20 years experience in forestry technology.

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Michael Dooner Receives 2020 SAF Presidential Field Forester Award

 

The Society of American Foresters (SAF) recently named Michael Dooner as a 2020 Presidential Field Forester Award winner. SAF’s Board of Directors annually recognizes one member from each of the 11 SAF voting districts who have dedicated their professional careers to the application of forestry on the ground using sound, scientific methods, and adaptive management strategies.  Michael Dooner is President and Founder of Southern Forestry Consultants Inc. (SFC), with more than 40 years of experience in forest and integrated natural resource management and planning. He is a Registered Forester (RF) in Alabama whose major areas of technical expertise are forest management, timber sales, forest economic analysis, prescribed burning, integrated natural resource management, forest inventory, and auditing. Mr. Dooner is also a Certified Prescribed Burn Manager and Licensed Real Estate Associate in Florida.

In his nomination letter for this award, Russell D. Weber, CF, SAF Florida Division chair, wrote that “I have followed Michael’s career through the years and early on it was apparent its trajectory was always professional, on the ground practical, and committed to doing the very best for private landowner’s and their forest lands.”

Under Mr. Dooner’s leadership, SFC provides forest management for hundreds of private and public clients on over one million acres in the Southeast. SFC has expanded its natural resource offerings over the years to include Southern Forestry Realty and Wiregrass Ecological Associates. Recently, SFC has entered into strategic partnerships with Lim Geomatics and Planet Imagery to provide its clients with redefining forest technology solutions.

Dooner’s commitment and passion to the forestry profession and the forest industry is exemplified through his numerous continued forms of service. He is the immediate Past-President and current member of Executive Committee for the Florida Forestry Association (FFA) and has served as the Florida Farm Bureau Federation District 4 State Director since 2000.  He chaired the FFA’s Forestry Roundtable 2009 and received its Above and Beyond Award in 2010.  Most recently he has tirelessly led efforts to secure funding for landowners and restore forested habitats in the wake of Hurricane Michael.  These stewardship efforts were recognized by the Florida Audubon through the 2019 Sustainable Forestry Award.

Additional information on this award can be found in the SAF Forestry Source, July 2020 edition.

Six things your business needs to know about cloud computing.

By Mike Berzinis II, RF, CSM.

 

For many folks in forestry, hearing about “cloud technologies” may create a strong compulsion to run away and into an open pine stand full of briars. There’s a good chance you didn’t get into the natural resources to be up on – or even interested in – technology. However, an inability to harness the power of cloud computing in your operations could limit your growth and ability to serve your customers’ and employees’ changing needs. We hope this plain language post about cloud computing provides some context for what continues to be the biggest shift in how businesses use technology.

1. The most powerful business solutions (and your smartphone) rely on cloud computing.

The most capable and cost effective business technologies are based on – and enabled by – cloud computing. Neglecting the use of cloud computing platforms is akin to milling your own home-building materials when standard dimensional lumber and other materials streamline the building process by fitting together uniformly. (you’d really have to want to do all that work!) Technology providers who have yet to embrace cloud-based computing platforms will spend more to deliver less by building out features that computing platforms have out of the box.

The cloud is “[the]#1 technology for the next decade. And ultimately be the foundation on which all smaller technologies in the near future are built. -The Motley Fool”

2. Always getting better.

In our experience, cloud computing technologies are always up to date and continuously improving. With desktop personal computers, it can be a challenge for providers to keep software up to date when each computer is different. In the cloud a provider completely controls the computing environment. By utilizing cloud-based capabilities, inefficiencies due to infrequent updates or obsolescence is a thing of the past. At the end of the day, a cloud based approach allows providers to deliver more value by keeping tools progressing and with minimal business disruptions.

3. More functionality and flexibility.

Need to enable more than just email on company smartphones? Many cloud-based software are multi-user based (e.g. many can edit at once) with tools which can function simultaneously across multiple devices, users and applications. These phone and web apps can function on a single source of data making it much easier to collaborate and maintain consistency.

4. Reduced (or no) dependency on physical offices.

Since cloud-based computing solutions are in the cloud, they don’t rely on computers in offices. This means software can function independent of office power or internet. One does not need to be at the office to access information, or rely on an office computer because it has a certain software or files on it. Our experience is that cloud-based software is more reliable than software which runs on a personal computer. The value of systems being independent of offices has really hit home during Covid-19 when people needed to distance and still use business tools and data and share information between staff. One client stated that “Had we not worked with you all to move our forest technology to the commercial cloud, we would have been dead in the water for running our operations during several staff quarantines”.

5. More secure.

We know of many organizations which have been hacked or had their server data held ransom in part because they have delayed cloud adoption. These events come at a great cost and disruption to operations. In the commercial cloud (Amazon or Azure, etc) there are much more security options, and the machines being used are kept up to date and secure for you while also being backed up.

6. Highly Configurable.

Cloud-based computing platforms offer “low code” functionality that moderately technical users can manage. This allows components and features to be re-arranged in different ways to meet your needs. Low code, configurable computing is a huge movement for many reasons including reduced costs and avoidance of risks associated with custom on premise software. One our favorite benefits of configurable apps is that we can set up tools for new projects in hours.

In Conclusion:

Many organizations are avoiding adoption of the commercial cloud because they heard something in the news or don’t feel they understand what it is. We hope this post provides confidence as you walk towards a future which will be increasingly digital and where business success is inextricably linked to technology success.

In a follow-on topic we’ll talk about some ways businesses can harness the potential of cloud computing.

SFC is a trusted technology partner and leading cloud solutions provider for numerous wood products and forest management organizations across the southeast.

Mike leads SFC’s Geospatial business line and is a military veteran and technology expert with 20 years experience in forestry technology.

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