Decision makers need to be able to examine stand growth and yields under a range of scenarios in order to determine the best way to achieve the desired business outcomes. A scenario reflects one possible “pass through reality”, such as one crop grown on one site through one regime using one group of models or function set, and clearfelled at one age using one cutting strategy.   These entities which define a scenario can be identified in a project and saved for further use, making it easy to run a wide range of scenarios in Forecaster.  The information required can be entered manually or can come from other applications such as stand records. The efficiency and consistency of planning is enhanced by having the set of entities used in the project available to other users and in some cases, other applications.  Multiple scenarios can be analysed by batch processing of projects set up manually or via a command line interface.

Information obtained from a simulated scenario over a full rotation can then be used as the basis for a stand-level economic evaluation.  These simulation outputs including initial stocking; the number of pruned trees and their size distribution; the size and number of thinned trees; and log grade volumes and extracted piece sizes for commercial thinning and clearfell.

Silvicultural Scheduling 

Scheduling silvicultural events so operations can occur at the correct time has a big impact on tree quality and hence log value at time of harvest. With Forecaster, pruning and thinning operations can be triggered by a range of stand attributes, including age, height measures and mean DOS.  The use of non-age based triggers means that stands growing at different rates can still share the same regime.

Each silvicultural operation is then defined by describing how stems should be selected, the operation’s target outcome and any constraints.  For example, a pruning may require the trees with the highest current pruned height to be preferentially selected, with a target pruned height to be achieved subject to a constraint on minimum green crown remaining after pruning.  Other constraints may modify the timing of the event, to avoid undesirable outcomes, and multiple trigger criteria are possible, where both conditions must be met before an operation can take place.

When stored against areas in the stand record system, the silvicultural schedule will be available for budgeting, contractor management and quality control.

 Yield Forecaster

Maximising the value of logs harvested in the forest is of primary concern to forest management. Forecaster uses the most up-to-date models to simulate yields of log types   produced by a range of genetics, sites and management practices. The yields of different log types are now based on the same log making processes and strategies used in pre-harvest assessment tools.  Quality factors such as pruning, branch size, and wood density determine which log types are possible. 

Once stored in a database such as ATLAS Yield Table Manager, the yield tables produced are readily available for strategic, tactical and operational planning systems.