Some woodland owners are very interested in their woods and want to be involved in managing them to produce forest products, such as pulp, sawtimber, and veneer.    Most woodland owners, unfortunately, have little forestry experience, so they simply hire a consultant to manage their woodlands, which is good.  At worst, they don't do anything.

But an individual with no formal training in forestry can get involved in managing his/her woodland.  How?  The easiest way is to hire a consultant who will work with you.  Short of that, you need to realize that woodland management involves a number of steps, some require considerable training and are best handled by a trained forester, and other steps are relatively straight-forward and can be done by you with relatively little training.  You can start with the simpler steps and, as you gain experience and knowledge, get more involved with the more complicated steps.

One of the easier steps that you might do and one that is relatively expensive to have done by a consultant is doing an inventory of your woodland.  An inventory is done to determine the condition of the forest and involves a series of steps with a critical part being the measurement of a sample of trees in the woodland.  There are various reasons to do a woodland inventory: develop a general management plan, prepare for a timber sale, estimate basis (value of the trees when the land was purchased), estimate the value of stolen trees, and more.  Each reason for doing an inventory should be addressed by a somewhat different type of inventory.  Developing a general management plan requires the least amount of training and allows you get a bird's eye view of your woodland and the condition of the trees there.

Before starting to measure trees, you need to develop an inventory plan.  Preplanning is essential for an inventory to be done well and produce results that can be used to decide on what type of management is needed for the woodland.

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Once you finish measuring the trees, what do you have?  You have the information (measurements) needed to estimate characteristics of your woodland, such as board foot volume per acre, that are used to decide how to manage your woodland.  Converting tree measurements into woodland characteristics is relatively straight-forward but is very tedious, involves considerable detail, and is error prone.  

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This is where TIGER for Woodlands and Compartments comes in.  It is an easy-to-use computer program that will estimate the information you need to help you decide what to do: volume per acre of each product you measured (pulp, sawtimber, and veneer).  TIGER will display the distribution of the diameters of the trees which is also useful when deciding which management actions might be desirable.  It will also display what are called stocking guides which are used to decide how crowded the forest is and whether a thin is necessary.  You can do all of this and more easily with TIGER for Woodlands and Compartments.  The program also can be used to assess tornado and storm damage and timber trespass.

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So where do you get training to do an inventory and help in deciding how to interpret your inventory?  From a trained forester and by reading.  Every state has extension foresters and state foresters that might be able to help you.  If enough people are interested, they can organize training sessions.  Many states have a program like the Master Gardener program that trains residents how to manage their woodlands.  You can contact state or county extension agents to learn about what is available.  They are often very valuable for the individuals who wants to get involved in managing their woodlands. Forest consultants could also do the training, and we are trying to find some who would be
willing to conduct training sessions.  

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There is much more to say, so I have written a short document that might help, click the button below to download the file for you to read.  Remember: you will be well served by working with professional foresters.