Harvesting equipment productivity studies have been conducted in many countries around the world spanning over 25 years. These studies have shown that many factors influence individual machine productivity. These factors include stand and site conditions, equipment configuration, management objectives, and operator experience. Productivity can increase or decrease with slight changes in any of these factors. This literature review also highlights the variety of experimental designs and data collection methods encountered in a cross section of those studies. It further shows the variation in species composition, stand density, tree diameter, and harvest prescription. Although studies that include the influence of operator performance on harvest equipment productivity are limited, they were included in this review where appropriate and available. It is clear that productivity equations should be developed using population-level data with several operators. Some studies were conducted in stands similar to Maine, but they used harvesting equipment that is not commonly used in logging operations in this state. Therefore the applicability of existing studies to the logging industry in Maine, USA, is very limited. Our conclusion is that in order to accurately predict harvesting productivity it is necessary to develop regional harvesting productivity equations using harvesting equipment commonly used in Maine. Forest operations researchers in other regions will be able to use this summary to explore the difficulty of applying productivity information to regional logging operations.

This review examines the impact of prescribed fire on the water quality variables (a) sediment load and (b) limiting macronutrients in forested environments globally. We aim to characterize the forested environments subject to prescribed fire, to discuss factors of the fire regime that contribute to water quality concerns, and to offer insight into the effect of precipitation timing and study scale on constituent exports. High fuel consumption during fire increases the risk of erosion and constituent export during precipitation, though high fuel consumption during prescribed fire is uncommon in forested environments. Small‐scale studies examining sediment yield after prescribed fire may fail to capture the effect of landscape‐scale spatial variability, and watershed‐scale studies accounting for such variability are lacking. Although small‐plot studies confirm that prescribed fire can alter hydrologic inputs, the environmental impact of these increases is minimal, particularly when compared with other land‐use systems. Generally, prescribed fire is a beneficial and low‐impact disturbance that likely improves fire‐adapted forest health. However, gaps in knowledge exist at various spatial and temporal scales; this review suggests two avenues of future research, including (a) greater understanding of fire regime interactions that control surface runoff and erosion at the watershed scale, and (b) monitoring forest health and ecological function after prescribed fire rather than direct nutrient exports.

Logging businesses in Georgia and Florida combine to harvest approximately 66 million tons of timber annually, more than 10% of the US total. Since 1987, the University of Georgia has surveyed Georgia logging business owners every 5 years. Florida logging businesses were included in 2022 to gain a better understanding of logging businesses in the region. During the first quarter of 2022, questionnaires were mailed to 503 and 132 logging businesses in Georgia and Florida, respectively. Adjusted response rates were 22% in Georgia and 25% in Florida. Logging businesses produced an average of 1,956 and 2,619 tons per week in Georgia and Florida, respectively. The median owner age was approximately 56 years in Georgia and 58 years in Florida. Nearly 40% of owners were over 60 years old in both states. More than 30% of loggers in both states expected to leave the industry within 5 years. The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on logging businesses, with over 80% of logging business owners reporting reduced production, employees becoming infected, and/or difficulty finding employees. Logging business owners identified fuel, labor, trucking, and insurance as their greatest challenges in 2022. Study Implications: Rising costs, turbulent markets, and shortages of labor are stressing many logging businesses. In the short term, adjustments to logging rates are needed to respond to increased input costs. In the long term, individual logging businesses, loggers’ associations, and the forest industry should collaborate to increase the pool of qualified labor, address trucking and insurance challenges, and create succession plans for logging business owners that plan to leave the industry.

Precommercial thinning (PCT) is a common silvicultural treatment in the management of young conifer forests. The positive effects of PCT on tree growth are well documented, however, there have been few operational studies of thinning productivity associated with later harvests in such stands and associated cost comparison with high-density, small-diameter stands. In the winters of 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 a long-term herbicide and PCT study in west-central Maine was commercially thinned using cut-to-length (CTL) and whole-tree (WT) harvesting systems in PCT and non-PCT stands, respectively. Thinning prescriptions consisted of three nominal removal intensities (33%, 50%, and 66% of the standing softwood volume) in a randomized block design with three to four replications. Stand density, basal area, hardwood content, and removal intensity were not significant in explaining variation in harvester and feller-buncher productivity. An analysis of unit cost of production indicated that wood chip production using a WT system in non-PCT stands is less costly than the production of roundwood using a CTL system in PCT stands. Profit, however, is similar for products harvested by either system. Our conclusion is that the WT system used in the study is economically feasible to treat highdensity, small-diameter stands in a commercial thinning.

Secondary transportation of raw and comminuted forest products is a major component in forest harvesting operations in terms of economics, public perception, and safety. Consequently, there is a substantial amount of literature on this topic. The existing literature has dealt with many of the technical aspects of transportation with a majority of them focusing on improving supply chain issues; however, there are only few specific to secondary transportation issues in general. This annotated bibliography will help practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders gain a better understanding of the existing literature from 2000 to 2015. To this end, we began by classifying the selected literature into six themes: cost, roads and routes, trucking, efficiency and safety, other modes of transportation, and supply chain and optimization. Woody biomass for bioenergy production was the most researched forest product with respect to transportation. About one-third of the articles were presented in the context of supply chain modeling and optimization. More than half of the studies originated from Europe while the United States had the most publications for any given country. Most articles (16) were published in 2013. Biomass and Bioenergy published the highest number of articles (29) during the timeframe.