Timber marking costs in spruce-fir: experience on the Penobscot Experimental Forest

In the application of partial harvests, time needs to be allocated to marking trees to be cut. On the Penobscot Experimental Forest located in Maine, eight major experimental treatments have been applied to northern conifer stands for more than 40 yr. Data recorded at the time of marking were used to estimate the time required to mark trees for harvest. A simple linear regression equation is presented that estimates labor hours per acre marked from data on volume marked per acre.