Select Cutting Pennsylvania Woodlots

Timber harvesting is important to Central Pennsylvania woodland owners. Did you know Pennsylvania forest products exceed $5 billion annually? The timber industry provides more than 90,000 jobs in over 2500 companies with a payroll exceeding $2 billion a year.

Private landowners In Pennsylvania received over $350 million per year in payments for timber harvests. In the more developed counties in Pennsylvania such as Lancaster, Lebanon, and Berks counties it is most common to see select cut logging on small private landowner woodlands.

Both select cutting and clear cutting are acceptable methods for Pennsylvania timber harvests. Clear cutting in which entire span of timber is cut is one of the management systems used by foresters to regenerate or renew woodlands.

Select cut logging is a technique in which individual trees or small groups of trees are harvested. Obviously you take the larger higher-quality trees, but you can also cull the woods of the many smaller, lower quality ones. This provides two distinct benefits. One, the growing space for the remaining trees will be increased and allow them to flourish. Two, it creates new areas where seedlings can become established. This helps to retain the full range of trees from large old trees to seedlings.

You can use select cutting to control species composition, tree quality, and age structure. Select cutting is easy on your forests and allows for substantial biodiversity.

Visual Effects of timber are temporary. To the casual observer, the visual evidence of the record is almost invisible after three to five years. New plants and other vegetation on the restored land disturbed areas become apparent.

Pennsylvania timber harvesting affects only a small part of the lands Pennsylvania's Wood. Every year. According to the report of the timber harvested in Pennsylvania, put out by Penn State University in 2004, the annual timber harvest is below Pennsylvaniathan 1% of current standing timber volume.