Pulpwood Prices

[GDAWG84]

Its a business and thrives on diversity. A properly managed 7000 ac tract should be capable of keeping a logger busy full time. Theoretically, you should be able to harvest between 6 and 10% every year into perpetuity with very few yearly gaps. This of course is dependent upon species, growth rates, weather, market conditions, etc. My guess is on your lease they are trying trying to meet a yearly acreage goal or trying to meet a yearly financial goal.

 

[Milkman]

You're probably going to have a mix of pulpwood and Chip and saw. The loader operator will sort your wood as he puts it on the truck. They will keep everything on the trailer in one category if at all possible. If it is 20 years old and has never been thinned, your best course might be to clear-cut and start again. Loblolly and Slash Pine do not respond well to thinning once they get a certain age (13-16 year old, depending on the individual stand) and have not been thinned. They never have what it's called Crown closure when thinned.

Good information thanks for sharing.

The GA Forestry guy said clear cut would be a good option too. My tract is small and has a good gravel road through it. He said the good access might make it a good option when bad weather hurts access to other tracts. He said due to limb retainage on my trees he recommends cutting at 22-23 years old.

 

[Elkbane]

No way I would clearcut a 20 year old Loblolly stand unless it was really bad stem quality to start with. In my experiemce, Loblolly ALWAYS responds to stand density manipulation unless it was originally planted at extremely high density, like 900 trees per acre. If anything, your delayed thinning makes for a cleaner lower stem from natural pruning which would make for better stem quality in a future sawtimber stand. That being said, the market is not paying you to grow really big wood right now, but a thinning now and a clearcut in 5-7 years would push almost all the residual stand into the sawtimber class.

Slash pine is a different animal - it doesn't really respond to stand density manipulation anyway ( maybe a little).

General rule is that Loblolly grows best if you can maintain a 40% live crown ratio; i.e. the residual trees (after thinning) have 40% of their total height in live crown. Depending on location, sometimes you can't find loggers who will cut stems at this size, so you have to wait until they are big enough to attract a logger. Decent acreage and 20 year old loblolly, you should be able to find a logger who will do a thinning.

If I were you, I'd contact a consulting forester and have them look at it, then let them handle the sale. This is not "in the wheelhouse" of your county forestry commission office - they have general knowledge but don't sell timber for a living (most of them have never done it unless they worked in the private sector), while forest consultants handle timber sales every day......

Elkbane

 

[SRShunter]

I know they are cutting every pine in south Carolina right now

 

[GDAWG84]

No way I would clearcut a 20 year old Loblolly stand unless it was really bad stem quality to start with. In my experiemce, Loblolly ALWAYS responds to stand density manipulation unless it was originally planted at extremely high density, like 900 trees per acre. If anything, your delayed thinning makes for a cleaner lower stem from natural pruning which would make for better stem quality in a future sawtimber stand. That being said, the market is not paying you to grow really big wood right now, but a thinning now and a clearcut in 5-7 years would push almost all the residual stand into the sawtimber class.

Slash pine is a different animal - it doesn't really respond to stand density manipulation anyway ( maybe a little).

General rule is that Loblolly grows best if you can maintain a 40% live crown ratio; i.e. the residual trees (after thinning) have 40% of their total height in live crown. Depending on location, sometimes you can't find loggers who will cut stems at this size, so you have to wait until they are big enough to attract a logger. Decent acreage and 20 year old loblolly, you should be able to find a logger who will do a thinning.

If I were you, I'd contact a consulting forester and have them look at it, then let them handle the sale. This is not "in the wheelhouse" of your county forestry commission office - they have general knowledge but don't sell timber for a living (most of them have never done it unless they worked in the private sector), while forest consultants handle timber sales every day......

Elkbane[/QUOTE
Elkbane I agree with your post and will add two somewhat contradictory points: 1) we do clearcut a good bit of young loblolly down here for various reasons and 2) slash pine responds well if thinned in a timely manner. I do agree that slash has a tendency to stagnate if it isn’t thinned on time or overcrowded. I’m not trying to be argumentative, just offering a different experience.

 

[joejoe47]

In my corner of Georgia, which is within 75 miles is Savannah, a lot of landowners are clear cutting 20-25 year old lobs to replace them with mass controlled pollination and select varietal trees. They are straighter taller faster. The math works. Waiting for out of date genetics to convert to logs at 35 years or so does not work. We do have a advantage over a lot of the state - we are very close to a lot of mills. Makes a huge difference in stumpage prices

 

[GDAWG84]

In my corner of Georgia, which is within 75 miles is Savannah, a lot of landowners are clear cutting 20-25 year old lobs to replace them with mass controlled pollination and select varietal trees. They are straighter taller faster. The math works. Waiting for out of date genetics to convert to logs at 35 years or so does not work. We do have a advantage over a lot of the state - we are very close to a lot of mills. Makes a huge difference in stumpage prices

Those mass controlled pollinator and varietals are something else. We planted about 100ac of MCP’s during the 2018 planting season and man have they grown! Almost 4 feet of growth going into the second growing season. According to the vender, we should be thinning them at 10-12yo and cutting logs out of them by 20yo. That’s fantastic from a pulpwood stand point but I sure wouldn’t want my house built out of that lumber...

 

[jav]

80 acres is a good size chunk.

What you get depends on many, many variables including but not limited to how far you are from the mills, how many loggers are interested in cutting it, access, poles vs sawtimber vs. chip n saw vs. pulpwood, etc. And of course density of trees per acre.....at the end of the day they are paying you for your timber, not acreage. So 60 fifty year old loblollies per acre will bring alot more than 20.

If I were you I would contact a reputable consulting forester. They will put your timber out to bid to loggers they have relationships with, and will bring the highest price because they are paid a percentage of the harvest. The more you make the more they make.

If you work directly with a logger, you run the risk of them taking advantage of you, and frankly, $10K for 80 acres sounds ridiculously low. I would guess you should be at least at $1,000/acre, but I don't know squat about your land or the variables I mentioned above.

Use this link to find a forester in Georgia near you, and reach out to them.

https://www.acf-foresters.org/ACFWeb/Directory/ACFWeb/Find_a_Forester/Directory.aspx

Thank You!

 

[juanlien]

Here’s what was just quoted to me

• PPW/Chips- $5.40
• Superpulp- $9.50
• CNS(7")- $14.00

nice

 

[rstallings1979]

Wife and I are cutting some now in select spots. We have some loblolly's that are ready and we got decent pricing on the Chip N Saw & Sawtimber. What has skyrocketed is the hardwood prices. They are up 60 or 70% from when we cut 3 years ago so we cleaned up a 20 acre natural hardwood area that was never replanted from years ago after a timber harvest. We will put loblolly's back in there when we replant in January. I know many think timber is not a great investment but if the land is paid for it's not a bad investment either. It usually doesn't decrease in value 25%-30% in a short period of time like our stock market did last month. I will have spent around $45k to $50K replanting 200 acres when this is over. If prices stay where they are now I hope to get $400,000 to $500,000 out of that investment if prices stay where they are now. I would have to average 8-10% yearly in the stock market to get that return and I don't feel confident that will happen over the next 20-22 years.


We are both 40 so we laid out a plan to cut/thin/replant three years ago, finish cutting this year in the thinned areas, and then replant those. Start thinning in 15 years and clear cut when we are in our 60s. Replant for the kiddos after that and let them handle the upkeep. Its just diversification for retirement and my boys love to help me control burn as well.

Also like JoeJoe said as well...we are close to the mills...that has a huge advantage.

 

[coastalredneck]

My friend says prices haven't varied more than normal. Weather is always the #1 influence on price. If we've had several weeks of wet weather and you have high and dry timber, your like the only girl at the dance.

this ^^^^^

 

[ClemsonRangers]

I have 80 acres of 50 year old pine with some mixed hardwood. I had 3 different cutters come in and give me an estimate on the timber. I was shocked how low the price was. Less than 10 grand and will make a Hugh mess. Any thoughts on what i should expect out of this timber?

extremely low unless it is some kind of salvage cut

 

[ClemsonRangers]

i saw 70 acres of hardwood sell for $200,000 last week, i would expect that you could get a lot more than $10,000 for yours

 

[Back40hunter]

Relative to sawtimber prices, what are everyone’s thoughts on how NAFDA has impacted prices. Seems like most lumber you see at the retailer is an import product, especially from Canada. I have some timber I’d like to cut but I’ve been waiting in hopes that Trump might do something to slow down the imported products and that domestic pine timber might go back up. Am I waiting in vain???

 

[oldguy]

I'd like to know what happened to all of the pine saw timber that was cut out of Southwest GA after the 95mph straightline wind event, followed by the tornado followed by hurricane Michael? Go to Lowe's etc. and see "product of some foreign country". Where'd OUR wood end up? And lumber prices shoulda' been cheap with a heap flooded market.

 

[twtabb]

“It usually doesn't decrease in value 25%-30% in a short period of time like our stock market did last month”

Mine lost more than that in one day in October a couple of years ago.

 

[Bobby Linton]

I work for International Paper. We make brown paper used in boxes and we have been told to produce all we can. News print and white paper were already dead before the caronavirus. 10k sounds very low, best advise in this thread was hire a forester.

 

[sleepr71]

Old guy has a good point. WHAT happened to all of that saw timber that had to be salvaged after those Hurricanes ? Was it used locally to rebuild in those areas? I know the lumber in most big box stores is (usually) CRAP! You’ll spend an hour trying to find 20 knot free,STRAIGHT boards,out of a whole stack .

 

[Jim Boyd]

I will say this:

I am VERY impressed about the amount of knowledge and wisdom expressed in this thread.

Excellent information!

 

[rstallings1979]

“It usually doesn't decrease in value 25%-30% in a short period of time like our stock market did last month”

Mine lost more than that in one day in October a couple of years ago.

Relative to sawtimber prices, what are everyone’s thoughts on how NAFDA has impacted prices. Seems like most lumber you see at the retailer is an import product, especially from Canada. I have some timber I’d like to cut but I’ve been waiting in hopes that Trump might do something to slow down the imported products and that domestic pine timber might go back up. Am I waiting in vain???

I do not think trumps 25% tariff on Canada wood moved the timber prices very much a year or so ago. It did cause building supplies to increase but local timber prices did not change very much at all.

Twtabb...I am assuming you (your timber) was hit by one of the hurricanes or natural disaster?