Hardwood stand
A hardwood stand is a section of forest made up of hardwoods, broad-leaved trees that produce a fruit or a nut and usually go dormant in winter, whose trees share characteristics such as species composition, age or soil features and are usually managed as a unit.
A hardwood, and a stand, before the phrase is one thing
The Virginia Department of Forestry keeps a working glossary, and it defines the two halves of this phrase as separate entries.
A hardwood, in VDOF's definition, is a tree that is broad-leaved, produces a fruit or a nut, and usually goes dormant during winter. A stand, in a separate entry, is a section of forest that shares similar characteristics, such as species composition, age or soil features, and is usually managed as a unit.
Put the two together and a hardwood stand is a workable piece of the woods, not just a description of the kind of trees growing there. A forester or a buyer walking a tract talks about stands because the stand, rather than the whole property, is the unit that is usually managed, and a timber cruise is the survey that assesses the wood volume, value and species a forest holds. A stand is also a different idea from timberland, a federal reporting category defined by what forest land is capable of producing.
With hardwood, quality often outweighs volume
The one fact worth carrying into a conversation about a hardwood stand comes from Virginia Cooperative Extension: with hardwood timber and logs, quality is often a more important determinant of value than volume.
So two stands holding about the same volume of wood can be worth very different amounts. A count of board feet measures how much wood is there; it does not measure how good that wood is, and with hardwood the quality is often doing more of the work. What else Extension ranks among the factors in the value of standing trees is listed under stumpage.
That is why no general description can put a figure on a stand. A consulting forester or the VDOF county forester is who evaluates a particular one, and how that evaluation becomes a price and a signed sale is covered in how timber is valued.
A hardwood stand on land you own?
Send the county and what you know about the trees. Lowell can talk through where a hardwood stand sits in the value of the tract, and a consulting forester is the one who puts a figure on the timber. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions about this term
Is a hardwood stand always one tree species?
No. VDOF defines a stand by shared characteristics such as species composition, age or soil features, not by a single species. A stand can hold a mix of hardwood species that grow together and are managed as one unit, and the next stand over in the same woods can differ in age or makeup.
Does a small cluster of hardwoods count as a stand?
The VDOF definition sets no minimum size. It describes a section of forest whose trees share characteristics and are usually managed as a unit, so whether a small cluster is treated as its own stand is a judgment the forester working the tract makes on the ground.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Glossary: Hardwood Virginia Department of Forestry
- Glossary: Stand Virginia Department of Forestry
- Forest Landowner's Guide to the Measurement of Timber and Logs (420-085) Virginia Cooperative Extension
- Va. Code 10.1-1163: exemptions from the Seed Tree Law Code of Virginia