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 Forest Service Research Note

Southern Forest so-292

Experiment Station May, 1983

Site Preparation Costs in the Southern Coastal Plain - An Update

Richard W. Guldin

INTRODUCTION

Landowners who want to regenerate their land

following timber harvest need up-to-date costs for

sound assessment of alternative site preparation

methods. The first survey of southern costs was

conducted in 1952 by Worrell (1953). Periodic updates since then have gradually expanded the cost

categories reported. A major expansion of cost categories for site preparation was launched in 1979,

reported by Moak, Watson, and Van Deusen (1980).

This note presents 1980 costs as an interim update

and partial verification of that series for four southern coastal plain states.

Site preparation treatments used on forest industry land and national forests in the upper and lower

coastal plain of South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were examined. Costs were

gathered from 126 contracts covering more than

16,000 acres prepared for planting during 1980.

These costs have been summarized in a form comparable to the 1979 average costs for the “Southern Coastal Plain” reported by Moak, Watson and

Van Deusen (1980).

Landowners can choose from a number of different site preparation options. Some options use

only one type of treatment per site, other options

use more. Analysis of the site preparation agreements associated with 85 planting contracts showed

that 7 individual site preparation treatments were

contracted either alone or in 14 different combinations (tables 1 and 2). Additional site preparation

contracts were collected for areas planted by national forest or company employees, and also for

areas where a complete string of preparation procedures could not be identified. This expanded

considerably the number of contracts for cost amalysis (table 3).

Shearing or injecting with herbicides those itrees

which remain on the site after harvest are the two

procedures most widely used to reduce compet:ition

from overstory vegetation. Shearing was useld 51

percent of the time, most often as the first in a series

of intensive, heavily-mechanized treatments. Injection was the initial procedure in 35 percent of the

cases, as a part of less-intensive, less mechanized

site preparation.

There were 54 contracts let for shearing, covering

9,400 acres. The average cost was $52.38 per acre,

Table 1 .--Relative popularity of individual sife preparation

treatments on contract-planted areas in the southern

coastal plain, 1980

Treatment Percentage of Contracts

Shearing 5 1

Burning 4 9

Injecting 3 5

Raking 2 6

Bedding 2 5

Chopping 1 9

Disking 2

Southern Forest Experiment Station/l-10210 U.S., Postal Services Bldg., 701 Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, La. 701’13

Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Serving Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, E. Oklahoma, Tennessee, E. Texas, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin lslalnds

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Table 2.--Relative popularity of site preparation treatment combinations on contract-planted areas in the southern

coastal plain, 7980

Treatment combination Number of contracts

Burn and inject

Shear, rake and bed

Inject only

Shear and rake

Shear, burn, and bed

Burn only

Chop only

Shear, chop, and burn

Chop and burn

Chop and inject

Shear only

Shear and burn

Shear, chop, bed, and burn

Shear and disk

Shear and inject

Shear, rake and burn

Rake only

Shear and bed

Shear, chop, and bed

1 7

IO

9

9

7

5

5

4

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

1

1

1

with two-thirds of the contracts falling between $40

and $65 per acre. Costs were dependent upon the

treatments used after shearing. When chopping

followed, shearing costs were always less than

$42.50 per acre, averaging $32. But shearing never

cost less than $50 when bedding, burning, disking,

or raking followed. With chopping as the next

treatment, the material sheared was either small or

widely scattered across the site. Also, when chopping followed shearing, the sheared material was

rarely piled into windrows. These factors contributed to fast and easy shearing, resulting in a low

cost per acre.

Injection of residual trees with herbicides cost an

average of $32.83 per acre (table 3). Some of the

contracts in this category also permitted the use

of clearing saws on small diameter stems rather

than injection. Therefore, in a few instances, saws

were used to fell small pines while hardwoods were

injected. The injection costs reported include the

cost of chemicals.

Raking following shearing was widely used. Of

the total acreage sheared, 60 percent was also

raked. The combined average cost of the two procedures was $95.52 per acre (table 3). Raking alone

cost $43 per acre. The 1980 combined cost represented only a 5.4 percent increase over the average

1979 cost for the southern coastal plain. This rate

of increase is but two-thirds the 8.26 percent annual

rate of increase in mechanical site preparation in

the southern coastal plain from 1976 to 1979 (Moak

1982). Moderating fuel prices were probably the

major factor contributing to the slowdown.

Chopping was primarily used as an initial treatment on national forests, while industry usually

chopped following shearing as an alternative to raking. The average chopping costs was $44.03 per

acre, while that of shearing and chopping combined

was $76. Disking was rarely used by either the forestry companies or the government, even though

it is commonly thought of as an alternative to chopping.

Broadcast burning is the major site preparation

method used for controlling competition from understory vegetation-grasses, forbs, and shrubs. It was

used nearly half of the time, at an average cost to

industry of $3.58 per acre. Forest Service records do

not permit breaking out a comparable cost of burning on the national forests.

Bedding is another site preparation practice more

widely used by industry than by the Forest Service.

Only the wettest sites on the national forests are

bedded, as a method to improve soil aeration in the

seedling root zone. Forest products companies bed

for this purpose, too, but also for competition control, even on very sandy sites. Land managers

Table 3.-Comparison of 1979 and 1980 per acre site preparafion costs for the southern coastal plain

Treatment

Number of 1979 average 1980 average

contracts costs’ costs

Shearing

and raking 40

Chopping 2 6

Injecting

herbicides 20

Bedding 2 0

Burning after

preparation 20

$90.65 $95.52 ($77.1 l-$1 13.92)2

$38.14 $44.03 ($37.09-$50.96)

$40.23 $32.83 ($24.88-$37.22)

$21.31 $17.38 ($15.45-$19.31)

$ 3.20 $ 3.58 ($2.86$4.30)

‘Moak, Watson, and Van Deusen (1980).

2The figures in parentheses are confidence intervals. The true

1980 average cost for the practice would fall in the cost range

95 times out of 100.

Richard W. Guldin is Economist, USDA Forest Service, Southern Forest Experiment Station, New Orleans, LA.

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should pay close attention to the level of bedding

benefits anticipated. Will bedding sites that are ,not

wet and poorly aerated yield $17.38 per acre (the

cost of bedding) in terms of improved growth and

yield from competition control?

With the exception of herbicide injection, which

has been included in all the cost surveys since 1952,

every other treatment shown in table 3 was reported

separately for the first time in 1979. There is no

statistically significant difference between the 1979

and 1980 costs of shearing and raking, chopping, or

burning after site preparation (the 1979 averages all

fall within the 95 percent confidence interval for the

1980 averages, (table 3). For both injection and bedding, however, the 1980 costs are significantly lower than the 1979 estimates. Part of the reason for

this decline may be that a weighted average 1979

injection cost for the southern coastal plain alone

was not available. Thus, the 1979 weighted average

for the entire South was used for the comparison

figure.

Forest managers planning site preparation operations for the spring and summer of 1983 should

boost the 1980 costs reported in table 3 by 21 percent to account for inflation and adjust them to anticipated 1983 levels. The resulting 1983 cost estimates can then be compared to bid prices received

to help determine if the bid price is reasonable. Wf the

bid price lies beyond the high end of the average

cost range, the difficulty of the job should be carefully examined when deciding whether or not to

accept the bid. Managers should pay especially

close attention to bedding and injection costs, which

seem to vary more year to year than do those of

other mechanical treatments. Careful evaluation of

anticipated site preparation expense will hellp assure more profitable decisions.

LITERATURE CITED

Moak, J. E. 1982. Forest practices cost trends in the

South. Sou. Jour. Appl. For. 6:130-132.

Moak, J. E., W. F. Watson, and P. Van Deusen. 1980

Costs and cost trends in forestry practices in the

South. Forest Farmer Manual 23:58-62.

Worrell, A. C. 1953. Costs of practicing forestry in

the South. Sou. Lumberman 186(2325):43-44. February 15,1953 issue.

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