An economic analysis of hardwood fiber production on dryland irrigated sites in the US Southeast

Although there is renewed interest in intensively managed, short-rotation plantations as a source of hardwood for pulp mills, few have been established in the Southeast. Understanding all the costs associated with these plantations will help determine their feasibility. Using a model developed to summarize all the costs, a break-even analysis was completed to determine the delivered cost for plantations of eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides Bartr.) from a hypothetical fiber farm in 2003. Using current yield from an experimental fiber farm, short-rotation cottonwood plantations were not cost effective, as delivered cost to a pulp mill averaged 78$ t−1. If yield can be increased by 40% through improvements in genetics and silvicultural practices, delivered cost is reduced to 60$ t−1. Thus, finding this additional yield is key to the cost feasibility of intensively managed, short-rotation hardwood plantations.