Timber Marking
Georgia Forestry Commission (GFC) Foresters can mark timber for non-industrial private forest landowners for a nominal fee and on a limited basis, although work is referred to Consulting Foresters as much as possible.
GFC Foresters are limited to 5 man-days per landowner. Marking is done for a small nominal fee of $1.00/cord for pulpwood and chip-n-saw, $3.00/thousand board feet (MBF) and $0.50/tree for seed tree and shelter-wood marking.
GFC Foresters will mark timber for a timber sale or to delineate streamside management zones. Timber marking does not include boundary line identification. Marking is done by placing a spot of paint at breast height (4.5 feet above the ground) and a spot of paint on the stump at ground level.
There are several types of marking depending on the type of harvest to be completed. For example, thinning a planted stand that has never been thinned would normally consist of an entire row being marked for harvest along with trees within the other rows being marked for removal that are inferior in some way. The number of trees to be removed depends on the initial density of the stand and what the residual density would be. In natural stands, trees would be marked similar to a planted stand except that rows would not be removed. A residual density would need to be determined and the stand should be marked accordingly taking out inferior or suppressed trees. If a stand is recommended to be left for natural regeneration, then it would need to be marked leaving seed trees with spacing depending on the average size of the trees to be left and to get the desired coverage of seeds falling to regenerate the entire area.
