Sunday, October 10, 2010

Timber

I have never sold a tree in my life but we have a few trees that would make good timber logs. I imagine everything else is high but timber right now.

I have helped dad and guided other land owners through the process. There are two independent consaltants in the region who will measure the timber, give you a list of bids and buyers for a small fraction of the value of the timber sold.

There is a logger in town who doesn't cut many trees anymore but he said he would look at them for me. I have dealt with him before and he was good to deal with. He has lived here all his life so I do trust him. There sure needs to be trust in a deal like this. Timber used to be known for scam artists but that has become less of a problem over the years.


I would keep them but they are mature and will just fall down someday or get hit by lightning. They are so far back off a road that you would have to build a road to get to them to enjoy them and most of the summer the bugs would eat you alive there.



I am not interested in making much money on them, just harvest them before they go bad. I don't like to see good logs go to waste. There are some younger straight trees in that grove that could stand some growing room.



They are not the problem the grubby fence row is that I showed you here awhile back but they do have some value, I just don't know what that is. They are mainly oak and hard maple and I know both have some value but timber prices varies differently than other commodities. No one is building right now so they may not be worth cutting.



I guess I will look around and find out.



Hope you enjoyed a beautiful Sunday like we did.



Ed Winkle

3 comments:

  1. For what it's worth, I just sold several acres of timber, mostly oak, on halves with the timber cutter. It averaged $594 per thousand board feet at the yard.

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  2. Thanks, Gorges. I would accept that. If you would visit my area you would see southern Ohio has patches of unmanaged timber and over grown fencerows everywhere. I have seen too many good timber trees go to rot and not help anyone. I don't want to fall into that. I have spent part of my last 7 years really trying to manage fencerows and improve crop production without hurting our environment. Sound timber cutting and fence row cleaning is a way to do that. Good for you that you could harvest another crop from your farm. You have added much to my blog and thinking and I hope my readers click on your name and read YOUR blog and learn a little bit more about you.

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  3. Be forewarned, that was basically a high-grade cut. It will be up to me to get rid of the junk trees now (if I can get it done), so the good YOUNG trees can grow their best. The sort of cut that was needed would have brought much less per MBF. I'm going to put a post up soon on timbering; be sure and watch for it.

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