SouthPro : a computer program for managing uneven-aged loblolly pine stands

Abstract

SouthPro is a Microsoft Excel add-in program that simulates the management, growth, and yield of uneven-aged loblolly pine stands in the Southern United States. The built-in growth model of this program was calibrated from 991 uneven-aged plots in seven states, covering most growing conditions and sites. Stands are described by the number of trees in 13 size classes for softwood, soft hardwood, and hard hardwood species. SouthPro allows managers to predict stand development, by year and for many decades, from a specific initial diameter distribution. Cutting regimes are specified by the timing and intensity of harvest. Cutting intensity can be set by a free target distribution or a basal area-maximum diameter-q-ratio (BDq) target distribution, or as a diameter-limit cut. Diameter distribution, basal area, volume, income, net present value, and stand diversity by species group and size class are shown in tabulated and graphic form.This manual provides suggestions for working with Excel, describes program installation and activation of SouthPro, and gives background information on the SouthPro growth model. The manual includes a comprehensive tutorial that explains how to start the program; enter simulation data; generate BDq distributions; add, delete, and retrieve setup files; execute single and multiple simulations; plot summary statistics; and produce stock-and-cut tables and marking guides. Limitations of the model and appropriate interpretations of its predictions are discussed.

The Role of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in Forest Landscape Changes in Texas, USA

“…Stand-level dynamics was simulated with growth and yield models for the five forest management types applied in the area of study: (1) pine-clearcutting, (2) hardwood-clearcutting, (3) pine-selection, (4) hardwoodselection, and (5) pine-hardwood-selection. We used Compute P-Lob (Baldwin and Feduccia 1987) for planted even-aged loblolly pine stands, SouthPro (Schulte et al 1998) for uneven-aged pine, hardwood, and mixed pine-hardwood stands, and the southern variant of the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) (Donnelly et al 2001) for even-aged hardwood stands.…”

Adaptive economic and ecological forest management under risk

“…ε t is a vector of random disturbances. In the following applications the parameters of model (1) are estimated from observations on permanent sample plots in the mixed loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.)-hardwood forests of the Southern United States (Schulte et al 1998) c . The differences between the deterministic predictions of model (1), and the observations on the plots give observations on the random shocks ε t due to ice storms, wind, insect outbreaks, abnormal weather, etc.… that have affected forest growth during the observation period (Zhou and Buongiorno 2004).…”

Forest landscape management in a stochastic environment, with an application to mixed loblolly pine–hardwood forests

“…For the mixed loblolly pine-hardwood forests considered here the stand state was defined by the basal area of trees in six classes of tree size and species (Schulte et al, 1998): pine pulpwood (12.7 cm DBH < 22.9 cm), pine small sawtimber (22.9 cm DBH < 38.1 cm), pine large sawtimber (38.1 cm DBH), hardwood pulpwood (12.7 cm DBH < 27.9 cm), hardwood small sawtimber (27.9 cm DBH < 38.1 cm) and hardwood large sawtimber (38.1 cm DBH). For each tree class, the basal area was low (0) or high (1).…”