Pro South Operations LLC. is now Forest Stewardship Council® Certified. Contact Mike Fisher at (662) 596-5134 or MikeFisher@prologging.com to see if you qualify for FSC® enrollment through ProSouth Inc. Click on the link below to view the U.S. FSC Standards.

https://us.fsc.org/en-us/certification/forest-management-certification

We strive to serve as your competent and reliable partner in business. Our friendly and attentive staff is looking forward to serving you.

Tree Facts

Carbon sequestration, air quality, and climate change

• A tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, and can sequester one ton of carbon dioxide by the time it reaches 40 years old.
• One large tree can provide a supply of oxygen for two people.

Energy

• According to the USDA Forest Service, “Trees properly placed around buildings can reduce air conditioning needs by 30 percent and save 20-50 percent in energy used for heating.”
• The net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.

Water

• In one day, one large tree can lift up to 100 gallons of water out of the ground and discharge it into the air.
• For every five percent of tree cover added to a community, stormwater runoff is reduced by approximately two percent.

Recreation and Wildlife

• Healthy trees provide wildlife habitat and contribute to the social and economic well-being of landowners and community residents.

Tree Lifespan

A reasonable estimate of the lifetime of trees is 100-150 years. Based on information from the USDA Forest Service, the lifetime of trees varies by region and species, but generally ranges from 50 years to 300 years of age. An average lifetime of trees planted in forests for long-term restoration purposes might be 100-150 years. Here are a few examples by region

• In the Southeast, conifers may live 100-150 years, while hardwoods may live 150-200 years.
• http://www.americanforests.org/discover-forests/tree-facts/

SUSTAINABILITY

The United States Forest Service prepares a report every 10 years on tree planting, timber stand improvement, and nursery production activities across all ownerships of forest land in the United States. I want to review highlights published in their 2000 summary.

Question: How many acres of trees are planted annually in the United States?

Answer: Tree planting on all ownerships total approximately two and a half million acres annually. This annual planting roughly equals the size of the State of Connecticut. Compare this annual planting to 2.3 million acres of trees planted under the ten year Civilian Conservation Corps tree planting program (mid-1930's to mid-1940's) and to 2.2 million acres under the entire Soil Bank Program (1956 to 1961).

Question: How many trees are grown in U.S. nurseries each year?

Answer: Approximately one and a half billion trees are produced and shipped by forest tree nurseries annually. Forest product nurseries produced 55% of the tree seedlings, private nurseries produced 22%, state nurseries produced 21%, and federal nurseries produced 2% during the 1990s.

Question: When were trees first planted?

Answer: The first records of tree planting in the United States were collected in 1930 and showed an annual planting of 138,970 acres. The most acreage planted in any single year came in 1988 when nearly 3.4 million acres were planted. This was at the peak of the federal Conservation Reserve Program.

Question: Who plants the most acreage in trees each year?

Answer: Forest industry plants 45%, non-industrial private owners plant 42%, the National Forest System plants 6%, other government and industries plant 7%.

Question: What state plants the most trees?

Answer: Alabama reported the largest annual tree planting of any state in the nation with a record of nearly one half million acres in a single year. The top five planting states were Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina. Massachusetts reported the least with only 7,000 acres planted.

Question: What state produces the most nursery seedlings?

Answer: Georgia's tree nurseries produced over 250 million trees each year through the 1990s and grew the most seedlings. Nearly 79% of all tree production in the United States occurs in the South. Western nurseries produce 17% and Northern nurseries produce 4% of total U.S. tree production.

MORE...

Forests cover about 26 per cent of North America's land area and represent more than 12 per cent of the world's forests. North America has more than onethird of the world's boreal forests as well as a wide range of other forest types. Some 96 per cent are natural forests. After the Russian Federation and Brazil, Canada has more forest than any other country, with 244.6 million ha. The United States is the fourth most forested country, with 226 million ha (FAO 2001). While Canada's forest area remained static during the past decade, in the United States it has increased by almost 3.9 million ha, approximately 1.7 per cent.

Estimates show that North America now grows 255.5 million m³ more timber annually than is harvested (UNECE and FAO 2000). The region accounts for about 40 per cent of the world's production and consumption of industrial wood products (Mathews and Hammond 1999).