Forests of Ohio

ODNR-Division of Forestry
Ohio State University Extension

Wood Volume, Growth and Removals

Though Ohio's forests have expanded tremendously in acreage during the last half century, the increase in wood volume and the overall growth have been even more remarkable. In 1952 there was an estimated 11.2 billion board feet of wood in all sawtimber trees. By 1991, the inventory had increased to 30.3 billion board feet. This increase occurred while approximately 400 million board feet per year, or a total of more than 13 billion board feet of wood, was harvested from Ohio's forests. The 1991 survey showed that more than 1 billion board feet of wood is being grown each year.

The relationship between the net growth and removals of each species can be represented as a ratio for growing stock (trees of all sizes) and sawtimber (trees 11 and greater dbh). This relationship can explain present and future changes in the composition of the forest resource. Overall, the ratio of net growth (total growth minus mortality) to removals for all growing stock was 2.4:1, which means that Ohio forests are growing more than twice the volume of timber that is removed. Almost all species of trees are growing significantly more volume than is currently being removed. However, in a few cases beech and the red and white oak sawtimber most notably--there was more volume removed than was being grown. The figure below illustrates growth versus removals for sawtimber.