INDIANA'S FORESTS CONTINUE TO GROW
by Burnell C. Fischer, State Forester and Joey Gallion, Indiana FIA Coordinator
The U.S. Forest Service released the final report of Indiana's 1998 Forest
Inventory & Analysis (FIA) in October 1999. Data shows what natural resource
professionals suspected: Indiana's forests are growing. Forests today cover 4.501 million
acres of Indiana landscape.
The Forest Inventory program first began nationwide in the 1930's. Periodic Indiana inventories have taken place in 1950,1967, 1986 and 1998, and new legislation is allowing an on going inventory, which began in 1999. Information collected from sample plots throughout the state, including the size, species and age of the trees in each plot, was analyzed at the Forest Service's North Central FIA headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota. The 1998 Indiana inventory included plots in both forested and non-forested landscapes, on land held by every type of owner. A total of 1,365 forest plots located across the state were measured.
Private landowners were identified as the largest forest landownership group, holding 76% of all timberland in 1998. The federal government is the largest public owner of timberland, representing 9% of total timberland area. Six percent of Indiana timber-land is held by the state, and corporations hold 9%.
Indiana's forest land area continued to show a net increase, a trend that began in the
1960's. Timberland (includes land meeting minimum standards for productivity, and land not
permanently excluded from harvest) increased from 4.296 million acres in 1986 to 4.342
million acres in 1998. This increase in timberland area likely came from the expansion of
existing narrow strips of trees rather than from newly established timberland. Most of the
increase in timberland area occurred in the northern half of the state, despite the fact
that this part of the state is the most urbanized and agriculturally oriented. Timberland
area also increased in the Upland Flats Unit, but decreased slightly in the Knobs and
Lower Wabash Units.
Indiana's forests are predominately hardwoods, with 95% of the total area of timberland classified as hardwood forest types. Primary forest types are oak-hickory (1.6 million acres) and maple-beech (1.4 million acres), followed by elm-ash-cottonwood and cherry-ash-yellow poplar. Oak-hickory, elm-ash-cottonwood and cherry-ash-yellow poplar forest types all increased in area since the 1986 inventory. The increase in acreage of the elm-ash-cotton-wood forest type may be attributed to narrow, wooded strips of bottomland forest. These areas were too small to be included in the '86 inventory, but expanded in width enough to be included in the '98 inventory. The area of oak-pine, oak-gum-cypress, and maple-beech all declined between 1986 and 1998, primarily because of the conversion of timberland to other land uses, such as development.
Conifer forest types represented 4% of the total area of Indiana timberland. In 1998,
eastern red cedar covered 117,000 acres, while pine dominated 81,000 acres.
As forestland area has increased, so has the number and volume of growing stock trees (a live tree of commercial species that meets specified standards of size, quality and merchantability).The number of growing stock trees in Indiana increased from 1.78 billion in 1986 to almost 2.0 billion in 1998; that's 3,40 growing stock trees for each citizen of the state! Volume increased from 5.2 billion cubic feet in 1986 to 6.9 billion cubic feet in 1998.Hardwoods accounted for 96% of all growing stock volume. These figures show that Indiana is growing 2-1/2 times more timber than is being harvested.
Not only has volume and number of growing stock trees increased, but the quality of
Indiana's sawtimber has also improved since 1986. (Sawtimber is a live tree of commercial
species containing at least a 12-foot saw log or two noncontiguous saw logs 8' or longer.)
The percentage of sawtimber in the highest quality classifications increased from 26% in
1986 to, 49% in 1998.The quality of white and red oak, black walnut and ash also improved
between 1986 and 1998, primarily due to increases in diameters and lengths of the free's
main bole. Most of Indiana's forest land is located in the Knobs Unit, in the south
central part of the state. The Knobs Unit has 4 of every 10 acres classified as
timberland. Perry County, located in south central Indiana within the Knobs Unit, is the
state's most heavily forested county with more than 165,000 acres of timberland. The
Northern Unit, which contains the whole northern part of the state, is the least forested
area with about 9% timberland. The greatest removal rate for hardwoods occurred in the
Lower Wabash Unit, located in southwestern Indiana. All four units (Northern, Lower
Wabash, Knobs and Upland Flats) have, for the past 30+ years, been growing more wood fiber
than what has been removed.
Forests are dynamic, living systems that grow, die and otherwise change. The primary
causes of change in Indiana's forests are natural succession processes such as growth and
mortality; natural disturbances such as tornadoes and floods; and human-induced changes
such as harvesting and land-use change. Forest lands that are reclassified to nonforest
land represent a conversion of forest land into other land uses such as development and
agriculture. The loss of almost 382,000 acres of timberland, converted to nonforest uses
between 1986 and 1998, was offset by the conversion of 421,000 acres of nonforest land to
forest. The information gained from the 1998 forest inventory is a considerable asset to
Indiana's forest products industry. The fifth largest manufacturing industry in the state,
the forest products industry contributes more than $690 million annually to the Indiana
economy. As mostly small, family-owned businesses, forest products companies play an
important role in rural communities. FIA data will be used to make forest management
decisions as well as used to identify business and market opportunities.
Detailed Indiana FIA data will be posted on the Internet by the U.S. Forest Service. Data from 1986 is currently available by visiting the Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis Data Base Retrieval System website at: http://srsfia.usfs.msstate.edu/scripts/ew.htm
For more information about the Indiana data, or how it can be used to benefit Indiana
forests, contact the DNR Division of Forestry's Utilization and Marketing Program staff at
1278 E. State Road 250, Brownstown, IN 47220; or call (812)358-2160; or e-mail inforest@hsonline.net