Perceptions of and adaptation to changing winter weather by logging business owners in northern Minnesota, USA

ABSTRACT

Focus groups with northern Minnesota logging business owners were held in spring 2023 to understand perceived and observed winter weather changes, challenges they may be facing due to any winter weather changes, and strategies they are taking to adapt to changing conditions. These discussions focused on logger perceptions of weather-related changes during the winter logging season over the course of their career, impacts of weather-related changes on harvest productivity, changes in business practices due to weather-related changes, and positive impacts due to winter weather changes. Most focus group participants are perceiving changing winter weather conditions and experiencing additional challenges to their winter logging operations due to these changes. They described how winter weather changes are impacting harvesting production and profitability, as well as how they have adapted their logging practices in response to these changes. The evolution of logging equipment and the characteristics of timber tracts available to harvest in winter, as well as greater sensitivity to soil rutting and compaction, make it difficult to discern the extent to which their observed changes in winter logging operations can be attributed solely to weather-related changes.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate
• timber harvesting
• logging equipment
• soil
• focus groups
• compaction and rutting

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Minnesota logging business owners who participated in the focus groups and David Nolle, Executive Director, Minnesota Logger Education Program, who assisted in recruiting focus group participants and provided input on an earlier version of this manuscript. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided, in part, by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station projects [MIN-42-103 and MIN-42-117].