The impact of Minnesota's forest management guidelines on the time required to set up public agency timber sales

Twenty-six public agency tracts of timber were offered for sale in northern Minnesota through a sealed bidding process during Fall 2002. Each tract was set up and offered for sale both with and without the requirement to apply a specific set of timber-harvesting guidelines. Foresters who set up each tract recorded their time spent on a variety of timber sale preparation activities. On average, it took 57% longer to set up the timber sales when timber harvesting guidelines were incorporated into the sale design - an additional 20 min/ac over the time required to set up a timber sale when guidelines were not used. With an assumed opportunity cost of $20/h, the value of that additional timber sale set-up time averaged $6.80/ac. Several ideas are presented to reduce the additional time associated with incorporating guidelines into timber sales. They include both strategies applicable across all timber sales, as well as those that are site dependent.