Having a management plan for a timber investment is important for several reasons. First, increasing land values have meant increasing capital costs for existing as well as new ownerships. Second, having a management plan provides continuity when land is devised. And, because land always moves toward it's highest and best use, the owner who fails to maximize his land's productivity risks losing it in the long run.

Because change is inevitable and often unforeseen, the scope of a management plan is usually limited to a 20 or 30-year horizon. A typical management plan includes a map and legal description of the property; a summary of site conditions; a summary of options tested with growth-and-yield modeling; a summary of modeling results; a description of the recommended establishment methods; a schedule for thinning and harvest or, on larger tracts, a timber depletion schedule; an estimate of the volume of wood obtained from thinning and harvest; a schedule of estimated cash flows; and a statement of the IRR the plantation is expected to produce.

All recommendations regarding plantation establishment, number of trees per acre, and thinning and harvest ages must be based on objective testing and analysis, and the results of the analysis must be reproducible. Subjective analysis and statements such as, "We feel this method is best" are not acceptable.

The following tables are an example of the results of growth-and-yield modeling:

Title: Example Tract No. of simulated growing seasons: 22 Random number seed: 68767 Site Index (base age 25): 80.0 Simulation size: 20 rows by 20 trees Percent of trees inherently pulp quality: 16.0 PLANTING INFORMATION --Machine Planted-- Distance (ratio) between rows: 12.0 Distance (ratio) between trees: 10.0 Maximum variance between rows: 10.0% Maximum variance between trees: 10.0% Trees planted per acre: 363.0 Establishment quality boost in years: 3 FERTILIZATION INFORMATION --Not Fertilized-- HARDWOOD COMPETITION Percent of total basal area: 4.8 OUTPUT INFORMATION Juvenile stand output: NO Thinning report output: YES ASCII File: NO Growing seasons completed before requesting first management routine: 12 Volume units in cords and board feet, Doyle scale

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