Timber cruise
A timber cruise is a survey of a forest to assess its wood volume, value, species composition or other factors, usually done before harvesting. Virginia Cooperative Extension says buyers of timber conduct this survey before they make an offer.
Wood volume, value and species, measured before a single tree comes down
A cruiser walking a tract is measuring trees, not admiring them. The Virginia Department of Forestry defines a timber cruise as a survey of a forest to assess its wood volume, value, species composition or other factors, usually done before harvesting.
Virginia Cooperative Extension describes it from the buyer's side: buyers of timber survey the woods before they make an offer, and the survey involves a series of measurements of individual trees along with an assessment of the factors that will influence the price.
When a cruise states sawtimber volume in board feet, the figure depends on which log rule was used, because the common log rules give different volumes for the same log.
A buyer's cruise weighs the ground the timber sits on, too
The trees are only part of what a buyer is pricing. Extension lists ground-level factors a buyer's assessment takes in alongside the timber itself.
Those factors include the terrain, the amount of road building required, the need for culverts, the access across adjoining properties, and the need for special best management practices to protect against erosion and site deterioration after logging. The same species and volume can price differently on two tracts when one needs a new road and culverts and the other does not.
That is why a cruise's number belongs to the specific tract, not to the county.
Pulpwood and sawtimber are counted, and valued, differently
Not every tree a cruise counts is worth the same, or measured the same way. Pulpwood, wood of fairly small diameter used for paper and other wood fiber products, is often measured by weight, in tons.
Sawtimber trees, large enough to be sawn into lumber and typically at least 10 inches in diameter at breast height by Extension's description, contain significantly more value than pulpwood trees. A cruise that finds mostly sawtimber is describing a different stand of timber than one that finds mostly pulpwood, even at similar total volumes.
Whether an owner needs a cruise before putting land on the market is its own question, answered in do I need a timber cruise before selling. How a cruise's findings become a price and a written timber sale is covered in how timber is valued.
Wondering what a cruise of your timber would turn up?
Tell us the county and roughly how much of the tract is wooded. Lowell will talk through where a cruise fits before the land goes on the market. No cost, no obligation.
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Questions about this term
Does a cruise measure every tree on a tract?
Extension describes a cruise as a series of measurements of individual trees, together with an assessment of the factors that will influence the price. It does not say that every tree is measured. How much of a tract gets measured, and how, is for the consulting forester or county forester doing the work to explain.
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: Timber cruise Virginia Department of Forestry
- Forest Landowner's Guide to the Measurement of Timber and Logs (420-085) Virginia Cooperative Extension
- Glossary: Consulting forester Virginia Department of Forestry