Auburn University
August 1 – August 4, 2021 (all times are Central)
Sunday, August 1 – Mary Olive Thomas tract
6:00 – 9:00 Ice-breaker social, spouses welcome
Monday, August 2 – Field trip – departure location to be determined
8:00 am We will visit three operations, likely a Southern thinning operation, a clearcut operation with a processing head, and a mulching operation that produces biomass. Box lunch will be provided. Plan is to return by 5 pm. Hardhats will be provided. Supper that evening is on your own.
Tuesday, August 3 – School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences Building on campus
8:00 am Welcome – Janaki Alavatapati, Dean, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences; Tom Gallagher, meeting Chair
8:30 am Keynote Speaker – Richard Lawler, Director, Forestry Production Systems and Strategy, John Deere – Smart technologies and how they can apply to forest harvesting equipment.
9:30 – 10:00 Break
10:00 – 10:20 Dana Mitchell, Project Leader, US Forest Service, Auburn, AL – Opportunities for acoustic technologies in the wood supply; Mitchell D., M. Smidt, M. Musah and B. Via.
10:20 – 10:40 Mathew Smidt, Research Engineer, US Forest Service, Auburn – Forestry sector employment, wage and safety data from public sources in the USA.
10:40 – 11:00 Beth Dodson, Professor, University of Montana and Charlie Blinn, Professor, University of Minnesota – Persistent changes to forest operations course instruction post-covid.
11:00 – 11:20 Patrick Hiesl, Asst. Professor, Clemson – Using case studies as a teaching tool to build leadership skills.
11:20 – 11:40 Manisha Parajuli, Graduate student, Clemson, Patrick Hiesl, Assistant Professor, Clemson, Mathew Smidt, Research Engineer, US Forest Service, Auburn, AL, and Dana Mitchell, Project Leader, US Forest Service, Auburn, AL – Decision support tool for biomass harvesting in forest restoration efforts.
11:40 – 12:00 Arjun Rijal, Graduate student, Auburn – Evaluating the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for assessing forestry best management practices; Arjun Rijal, Richard Cristan and Tom Gallagher.
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 1:20 Brent Hawks, Graduate student, Virginia Tech – Forestry best management practice implementation and erosion rates by state and regulatory approach in the Southeastern United States; Hawks, B.S., Bolding, M.C., Aust, W.M., Barrett, S.M., and Fielding, J.A.H.
1:20 – 1:40 Austin Garren, Graduate student, Virginia Tech – Evaluating the productivity and costs of five energywood harvesting operations in the lower mid-Atlantic region of the US; Garren, A.M., M.C. Bolding, W.M. Aust, S.M. Barrett, and T.A. Coates
1:40 – 2:00 Luke Chasuk, Graduate student, Auburn – Evaluating the productivity and costs of three energywood harvesting operations in the southeastern region of the US; Luke Chasuk, Tom Gallagher, Richard Cristan, Dana Mitchell, Jo Daniels.
2:00 – 2:20 Libin T. Louis, Graduate student, UMaine – Biomass harvesting amidst market and policy constraints: perspectives of foresters and loggers in the Northeastern United States; Libin T. Louis, Adam Daigneualt, Anil Raj Kizha
2:20 – 2:40 Xufeng Zhang, Graduate student, West Virginia – Quantifying the life cycle impacts of forest logging residue logistics; Xufeng Zhang, Jingxin Wang and John Vance, Center for Sustainable Biomaterials & Bioenergy, West Virginia University.
2:40 – 3:00 Wanhe Hu, Graduate student, West Virginia – Characterization of forest logging residues for utilization of bioenergy and bioproducts in the Eastern United States; Wanhe Hu, Jingxin Wang, Xufeng Zhang, William Smith and John Vance, Center for Sustainable Biomaterials & Bioenergy, West Virginia University.
3:00 – 3:20 Break – School Conference Hall
3:20 – 3:40 Joe Conrad, Assistant Professor, Georgia – Stakeholder perceptions of potential weight limit increases in Georgia.
3:40 – 4:00 Joe Conrad, Assistant Professor, Georgia – Comparison of log truck crash rates, severity, and contributing factors before and after weight limit increases in two southern states.
4:00 – 4:20 Alex Ashish, graduate student, UMaine – Small-scale forest operations: Pre-commercial thinning using semi-mechanized harvesting system; Alex Ashish and Anil Raj Kizha
4:20 – 4:40 Ian Snider, Graduate student, Clemson and Patrick Hiesl, Assistant Professor, Clemson – Draft animal logging in Appalachia: The historical roots of Artisan Forestry.
4:40 – 5:00 James Walker, graduate student, Auburn – Designing a felling head for a wheeled machine to recover downed timber; James Walker, Tom Gallagher, Tim McDonald and Dana Mitchell.
5:00 – 5:20 Hermudananto Hermudananto, graduate student, Florida – Logging practices in Indonesian natural forests.
5:20 – 8:00 Social and dinner – SFWS building, spouses welcome
Wednesday, August 4 – Field trip – departure location to be determined
8:00 am The plan right now is still fluid but we expect to visit a sawmill, a chipmill and a pole mill. Box lunch and hardhats will be provided. For those that need to leave and catch a plane there will be options to break away and get to the airport. Supper that evening is on your own.