Wood Ramblings & Forest Facts
Wood is natural, renewable, recyclable, energy efficient and easy to use. It comes from inexpensive, self-repairing, self-reproducing, oxygen producing, self-aligning solar collectors (most call them "trees") that stores energy until you want it. Trees grow for free.
Your buddies been giving you heck for heating with wood and adding to pollution, ozone layer and deforestation? Lay this one on 'em: As a tree grows, it absorbs sunlight, CO2 and soil nutrients to create wood fiber, while producing O2 in the process. When a tree is burned it makes heat, consumes O2, and releases its nutrients in the form of ash. It will make the identical amount of CO2 during combustion as it absorbed during growth. If that same tree is land-filled or silently decays on the forest floor, it will decompose into identical chemicals and produce the same volume of heat, albeit more slowly. Ever feel your compost pile heat up? If you do not burn the wood to obtain the heat that the fiber contains, the wood will decompose (oxidize) into CO2, heat, and ash anyway. If you burn oil, gas or coal (electricity) to make the heat you need, you give Mother Earth a double dose of CO2 ...once from the wood waste composting and twice from the combustion of fossil fuels. There is a lesson here: Wood waste is not waste unless it is wasted.
The Indiana forest products industry is the sixth largest manufacturing industry in the state, employing over 56,000 people. Forest-based manufacturing provides $3.5 billion in value-added and $7.9 billion in value of shipments to Indiana's economy each year. It ranks first nationwide in the production of wood office furniture, wood kitchen cabinets, and hardwood veneer, along with several other products. As small family-owned businesses, wood products companies average less then 50 employees and play an important role in rural communities.
About one half of a log entering a modern sawmill ends up as lumber, the remaining 50% is "offal" that ends up as chips, bark mulch, and sawdust. Almost all (95+%) of sawmill "offal" byproducts are used for paper manufacturing, industrial fuel or animal bedding. Of the lumber that does leave a sawmill to be used as a raw material in the secondary manufacture of furniture, flooring, doors, and other hardwood end products, again only about 80% of that lumber actually ends up in the final product... again chips, shavings, trim and cut-off blocks take their toll against the gross lumber input. Thus, although modern processes allow for relatively efficient use of wood, it is still a very real and somewhat sobering statistic that only about 10% of the wood that is commercially harvested and removed from a forest ends up in your new bedroom suite, kitchen cabinets, flooring or other final consumer product.
Indiana has 4.5 million acres of forestland - that's approximately 20% of Indiana's land base. The area of timberland in Indiana has steadily increased since the 1960's. Timberland increased from 3.896 million acres in 1967, to 4.296 million acres in 1986, to 4.342 million acres in 1998.
95% of Indiana's forests are classified as hardwood forest types. Primary forest types are Oak-Hickory (1.6 million acres) and Maple-Beech (1.4 million acres).
Private landowners own 85% of the timberland in Indiana. As of 1994, more than 150,000 private forest landowners owned over 370,000 acres. By comparison, in 1978 there were only about 50,000 forest landowners. In that 16 year period, the number of landowners tripled but the acreage increase amounted to only 30,000 acres.
On average, Indiana trees are growing in volume more than 2.5 times the amount being removed. Nope, we're not running out of woodlands... but as suburbanization marches on, the access and availability of forestland for commercial use becomes a more critical issue.
The Indiana forest products industry is the 6th largest employer in Indiana, employing over 56,000 Hoosiers.
Forest-based manufacturing provided $3.5 billion in value-added and $7.9 billion in value of shipments to Indiana's economy in 1997.
Indiana ranks 18th nationally in value added for all forest-based manufacturing industries and 1st nationally in value added manufacturing for both wood and office furniture.
1997 Economic Census data determined there were 205 sawmills in Indiana. In addition to the 205 sawmills, there are 926 secondary wood manufacturing plants making consumer goods such as furniture, flooring, cabinets, and a host of other quality hardwood goods.
Midwestern forests can be excellent investments. Not only do they provide outstanding recreational opportunities, wildlife habitat, clean air and water, they can also grow up to 400 or more board feet per acre per year resulting in internal rates of return exceeding 12% per year. Do all forests fare this well... No... only those that are professionally managed, including biologically and financially correct selection of harvest trees.