A material reduction machine includes a prime mover driving a cutting mechanism. An infeed portion engages a piece of material to feed it forward to the cutting mechanism. A sensor senses a machine load parameter via the cutting mechanism and/or prime mover and reports a signal to a controller operatively coupled to the infeed portion to control sequential cutting cycles on the piece of material. The controller utilizes a stored first stop threshold value for stopping a first cutting cycle and continues monitoring the signal as machine load increases momentarily after reaching the first stop threshold. The controller determines and adopts a second stop threshold value based on observation of the machine load parameter indicative of maximum load during the continued monitoring following attainment of the first stop threshold, and further being based on a stored correction factor. The second stop threshold value is used for a second cutting cycle.