Quality meets quantity

Atree was planted 15 years ago. Today it was harvested. Tomorrow it will be processed to make the essential fiber, wood products and electricity we use every day. Next year, another tree will be replanted in its place.

This regenerative cycle of forestry activities produces $23.6 billion for the state’s economy and employs over 108,000 people, making up Virginia’s third-leading private industry behind agriculture and tourism.

trucked to Dominion Energy’s biomass fuel facility in Southampton County.

Three of Dominion’s coal-fired power stations were converted to generate 100% renewable biomass energy, powering 38,000 Virginia customers. The company does not harvest wood for use in its biomass facilities but uses only the waste. Before biomass became mainstream, undesirable wood was just burned or rotted on harvest sites.

ARTICLE AND PHOTOS

BY NICOLE ZEMA

While motorists might scorn the look of clear-cut timber stands or trucks hauling logs on highways, Virginia’s forestry experts assert that logging activities are a powerful forest management tool. Logging operations can create new wildlife habit and enhance biodiversity, executed with methods that preserve and improve forested landscapes.

More than 75% of Virginia’s forests are hardwood, according to the Virginia Department of Forestry. Pine makes up 20%, about two-thirds of which are planted pines. Loblolly pine and yellow poplar are the most harvested for volume.

Timber is harvested for lumber, milled, and cut into boards or planks for building materials. Smaller trees, salvage and waste are processed into chips or pellets used for biomass— burned to harness electricity.

While forestry activities occur statewide, Brunswick County is Virginia’s most heavily logged area, and loblolly is king.

Planted pine is more adaptable and resilient, said forester Joey Jones of M.M. Wright Inc., based in Gasburg. “We grow them for straightness, height, circumference, pest resistance and growing time,” he said. “Quality and quantity.”

His team was working to clear a salvage site of pines damaged in a 2020 ice storm. Some of the trees were chipped on site and immediately

“Our job as foresters is to market the wood to many different locations, to get more money for the landowner, loggers and truckers,” Jones explained. “And we need biomass facilities, so we have a market for this type of wood.”

Hardwood forests don’t typically need replanting.

“You can come back to cut the same hardwood site over and over again without planting more,” said Timothy Goodbar, a Rockbridge County logger. He selectively harvests timber so new trees are constantly growing. "Young forest is good turkey and deer habitat and allows water to permeate the soil.”

In a nearby area, lifelong forester C.K. Greene of Virginia Custom Thinning & Chipping has trained his team to selectively cut undesirable trees, making space in the stand for the best pines to grow big, fast. Loggers traversed forested terrain in skidders, cutting small trees in bunches and piling them in staging areas where they were fed into a chipper.

“We leave 200 of the biggest and best quality in the stand—the No. 1 and No. 2 trees,” Greene explained. “We take out forked trees, the runts, and leave enough trees per acre to have a valuable crop to grow. It’s beautiful. I love what the earth has given me.”

Greene’s 35-person team is booked up to four years in advance.

“That’s because of our image,” he said. “Good, clean work.”

A lack of mill labor and truckers created bottlenecks in the lumber market, leading to a national price spike in 2021. Though prices have eased, foresters are now spending more on inputs.

Greene said his company’s diesel bill went from $19,000 to $42,000 per week, and markets are increasingly limited as more mills integrate.

Landowners don’t necessarily fetch higher profits during market fluctuation either. He encourages them to save cash for replanting.

“Without cost-share for reforestation, a lot of what we do wouldn’t be planted back, because there is always a need for money somewhere,” Greene said, referring to the Reforestation of Timberlands Program.

For decades, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation has worked to make timberland owners aware of reforestation incentives while advocating for matching funding from the state. Managed by the VDOF, the program provides cost-share assistance to landowners for pine reforestation and is funded by the Virginia Forest Products Tax with matching funds from state’s General Fund.