Executive Summaries

2025 Executive Summary of Activities and Accomplishments

The Forest Productivity Cooperative

2025 was the FPC’s 56th year in our mission to create innovative solutions to enhance forest productivity and value through sustainable management of site resources. Here we summarize some key program accomplishments and new findings from the year.

Member interactions

· We added three new members: Burgin Timberlands and Westervelt based in the US and April with operations in Latin America (LA).

· The FPC staff visited with  14 members in the US and 5 in LA which required 90 days of staff time in the US and 32 days in LA to prepare for, participate in, and produce a summary report for each member visit. 

· We hosted visitors from Australia.

Meetings

The FPC hosted  an annual meeting and a strategic planning in September, a contact meeting in LA in  October and in the US in December.  Participation at the meetings exemplified member interest in our activities with  over 200 people attending all the meetings.  Meeting material can be found at https://www.forestproductivity.org/event-presentations.

Strategic Plan

We developed our strategic priorities for 2025-2030 as the outcome of our strategic planning meeting in September.

1. Vegetation Management.

· Evergreen and deciduous understory detection, quantification, and classification

· Duration and intensity of control to achieve max efficiency with minimal treatments

2.   Density Management

· Interactions with Veg Control, Fertilization, and Genetics

· Plantation design – layout, configuration, and orientation

3.  Site-specific Silvicultural Management

· Refine LAI baseline and change detection for silvicultural prescriptions and response. 

· Refine and improve SPOT map quality and accessibility.

· Fertilization rate and timing to achieve max efficiency with minimal treatments. 

· ECM fungal inoculations for increased productivity

Publications

FPC personnel authored 18 peer-reviewed papers in 2025.  These papers brought the program total output to 800 publications, dissertations and theses and highlight the impact the program has had today and over time on our understanding of forestry. 

Key Findings From Publications

1.  Silviculture: Mixed planting outgrow pure plantings by 4-5% per tree by age 8-9.  Late season vegetation control reduced competing vegetation  better than early season and 2 year release.  Drought resistance was similar between initial plantings and coppice. Foliar nutrient concentrations are not useful in predicting response to ameliorating nutrient limitations. 

2.  Remote sensing:  LiDAR data are useful in growth and yield models.  Precision forestry is operationally feasible.  MODIS productivity products are useful for plantation management.  Helicopter based LiDAR can acquire ht and dbh measurements.

3.  Modeling:  Biomass expansion factors and root:shoot ratios need to fluctuate across climatic and growing regimes. Process models can evaluate Eucalyptus genotypes under climate change.

4.  Ecophysiology:  above- versus belowground biomass accumulation did not explain why P. taeda may grow better in Brazil.   Soil CO2 does not originate solely from microbial and root respiration. Eucalyptus genotypes vary in their water use efficiency and ability to maintain transpiration rates.  Fine roots in Eucalyptus spp. are concentrated in the surface 1 m.

Scientific Meeting Presentations

· Christen Beasley presented a paper on live crown length and juvenile fertilization at the Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference . 

· Gunjan Barua presented a poster on his work on projecting growth using LiDAR data at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans, LA.

· Rafael Rubilar presented on Modeling fire impacts on growth and productivity at the 10th Conference on Fire Effects on Soil Properties and on FPC silviculture and the Eucahydro project at the VI Reunion General de coppice Arena CMPC Celulose Riograndense.

· Natielle Cordeiro presented The role of climate variables in the soil carbon stock of forest plantation areas at the Latin American and Caribbean Soil Carbon Research Symposium.

· Oscar Jara presented Modeling the effect of climate and site on carbon stock in the soil and forest floor in plantations of Pinus radiata at harvest age at XV Congreso Chileno de la Ciencia del Suelo.

Program management

Funding:  Our 2025 budget was $2.9MM of which member support accounted for 29% with the remainder coming from grants, contracts, and university support. 

Grants:  We received three grants for about $1.85MM:    MHIDROC3 Modelo Hidrológivo Chileno de Cambio Climático. ANID IDeA I+D Tecnologías Avanzadas 2025 (TA25I10005) and Fondef. IT25I0176. Modelo para cuantificar el secuestro de carbono en bosque nativo y plantaciones forestales. The Root-associated Mycobiome of Loblolly Pine under Phosphorus and Potassium Deprivation in Southeastern Plantations.

We submitted  6 proposals to provide additional funding for work pertinent to FPC members.  The proposals included:

· Additional funding for phosphorus carryover and managing the fungal microbiome

· Examination of branch size and wood quality at low stand densities

· Examining how mixed populations compare with pure populations

· Follow-up to LiDAR informed thinning study 

· Improving soil potential productivity maps with digital elevation modeling

· Response to fertilizer vs herbicide from drone-based application

Personnel: 

· Jacob Bost joined the FPC as a Research Assistant at NCSU with a focus on data collection and field management. 

· Al Lyons (previous member rep) and Jacob Hackman (previous graduate student) work with the FPC now as “Silviculture Operation Specialists” to help with member visits, expanding our geographic and knowledge base in the SEUS. 

· Shane Furze was hired at VT as an Assistant Silviculture Professor and is interested in participating with the FPC. He has introduced himself at the annual and contact meetings and has completed some member visits. 

· Christen Beasley  left her role at VT to work for the WVA Forest Service.

· We added 2 new graduate students at UFLA:  Thaís S. Gonçalves (Masters) and Yago Martins (PhD).

Field Measurements: 

· We measured 29 FPC studies with more than 59,000 trees. 

· We purchased a DJI Matrice 400 UAV with a L2 LiDAR Sensor.  The new equipment should improve our height measurements, make measurements more efficient, and collect additional plot level info such as understory. 

· We completed a biomass harvest at the 15N study, processed 1000 isotope samples and 450 soil carbon samples. 

· We installed two RW28s (total of 10 now), two site preparation intensity studies, and one drone weed control study. We initiated work on a study examining applying different fungal communities at planting.

Interactions with other Cooperatives: 

· We co-hosted our annual meeting in September with SOFAC and our contact meeting in December with TIP. 

· We developed a joint project with FMRC to improve Fastlob and other FMRC models with the latest data, including RW29 thinning x fertilization response. 

Member communication:  

· We continue to refine our web site and the information and tools that are available to members on the site.  This year we had more than 500 active users to the site. 

· We introduced the Production Report, a quarterly newsletter for members to provide them with information about FPC activities.