Anyone with experience having their property logged?

A good guy I use to work with said it well. He said look at it as you telling someone they can take some stuff from your garden. They are more than likely going to take the nicest stuff.

So the timber guys and their foresters are most likely going to take the nicest trees that will make them the most money.

So between what you guys have told me in your comments and what I have learned talking with a couple of guys I know who have had their land thinned/logged I am making some progress.

One of the guys has over 300 acres and used Curran for the thinning logging of his property. But he hired his own consultant forester. He and his forester marked the trees and then had Curran come in and take them out.

The other guy used a N.Y.S. DEC Forester and did his own cutting under the Forest Stewardship Program. Good program but have to make sure you "exclude" any areas you may want to build something or change something in the future. Because it goes for 10-15 years and you can't build/change on land you have in the program.

Interesting stuff.

 

Who ever you allow or hire to cut you trees, you might ask for places the have recently done. Go visit them and see what kind of work they do.

 

Yes. Good plan. I am going to walk the two gentlemen's property I was referring to above. Hopefully sometime in the next few weeks.

Why do I think I am going to end up hiring a consulting forester and then thinning the woods myself the way I want it done?

 

81 acres of fun and enjoyment, that is why. You see, this is all this places fault. Your guys fault. You know that! Don't you? Look at that smiley with the chainsaw. Look at what you have turned me into with your love of firewood, saws, equipment, dohickies, etc.I am going to end up doing the work myself, probably against my wife's wishes (because I am not a good salesman), and it is all your all's fault. (How is that for red-neck talkin.)

 

You hardly make a nickel on pulp, biomass or firewood. A logger needs about $60/cord of wood that he brings to the landing. You can put the equivalent of 10 cords on a log truck with trailer. The trucker gets about $300 per load. If its firewood or pulp they get about $1000 per load which doesn't leave much wiggle room if their costs are higher. You could be looking at < $50 if you aren't careful. If you load up a truck with saw logs there is quite a bit more money. So that is what the logger wants to get a slice of.

 

You know I am waiting for his proposal. I can not remember what he mentioned he would pay per ton. I do remember if he could give me a ball park figure of what he thought I might make on all the stuff he took off the 81 acres. He was honest and said what I try to do is give the land owner the lowest number if I give an estimate from experience. That way when I give him a check and it is a good bit more than I estimated the owner is happy. I was not thrilled with the number he gave me for 50% of the trees on my acreage. But he trying to make a profit, and I also know that my trees were planted as a Christmas tree farm about 45 years ago. That is why there are too many trees in the woods. So there is not a lot of large and quality trees.

Going back to what my good guy I use to work with said about letting someone take from your garden. I want the opposite, I want to take all the less desirable trees off my lot. More than likely, in order to make the most money, the logger would want to take all the best trees. He is in business to make money. So as a land owner, I need to make happen what I want to happen.

 

I guess I am thinking by taking all the less desirable trees now it will make my woods that much more healthy for the more desirable trees I leave and a future logging/money making event 20 years from now. I am reading and it sounds like the thinning of the woods should have happened earlier in the trees life that are there now.

 

Call your county forester and ask if there is any WHIP money available. We got $800/acre to cover the costs on an unprofitable job. We flattened 10 acres. A patch of 5, another three and 10 strips that totaled 2. The goal was to get an evened aged forest a chance to be one diversified. The land had been high graded twice in 40 years so we basically had nothing of value on it. (We ignorantly did one of the jobs and the land was bought with the previous owner allowed to log for a year.) If your land is an old christmas tree farm than it probably is similar. This was all done with a game biologist from the Vermont department of natural resources supervising.

 

I will look into that. I would prefer to not flatten, but I know what you are saying. I don't think my woods is that bad. Another thing I found interesting that the logger actually told me. He said you need to think about a few things we have talked about. One of which was the fact that I heat with firewood and what if half of all the trees are gone. Will I need to now buy part of my firewood after that? And another that he mentioned was that there is some potential from wind damage. I have some trees down from wind damage now. If he removes half of the trees it is possible that even more wind damage could happen.

 

I've had a number of trees come down due to the thinning. (Luckily just the right amount I can keep up with processing, so it has worked out great for me). The forest ranger said I should expect that for around 5 years and that was with less than 20% of the trees taken. But yeah trees are more prone to wind damage after a harvest.

 

81 acres left on it's own will do what nature intended it to do - create more than you can burn/process in a lifetime from snags/deadfalls.

If you go ahead and have someone log the land seriously consider a decent buffer to what you look out the window at everyday.

When you consider what you are doing to the land today, realize your kids may see benefits from a good job or a slash cut, 40-50yrs from now - heck you may see it from the rocker on the porch

 

If you want to cut your timber, hire a logger. If you want to manage your timber, hire a Forester. I cant imagine not wanting to manage my timber.
Its like if you wanted to build a really nice house. You could hire a builder to design an build it, but the details of the house might not be that great. If you hire and architect, you will end up with a house that is really something to be proud of.

 

This is why I was going to say. You say the forest is unhealthy now, well the best way to reverse that is to log the land selectively. Thinning the forest may look worse right now, but in the long run the overall health of the forest will be better.

Noting about trees is fast. You cant simultaneously make your forest healthier and also keep it looking full and thick over night. Good luck

 

If I had woods, I wouldn't want to log them. I have seldom seen a woodland that wasn't trashed after loggers left. Most of the time it seems like they did far more damage than was necessary, leaving large areas of disturbed soil, knocked over trees, piles of dirt and slash everywhere, etc.

I am not at all opposed to managing the forest or removing trees, but I wouldn't want my forest trashed by your typical logger.

 

My property is mostly White Pine, with some White Ash, and very small amount of other species. Looks like many trees they would use for chips, but some Ash for logs and also some nice Pine for logs.


I have talked with several loggers now. Many haulers/loggers providing material to energy plant. What should I think about possible prices?

Load tickets provided for all loads leaving property. Payments made by weak or month. Contract lengths vary, most of these guys are busy and want to have contract for up to 12 or 24 months. Smaller guys it may take them several months from when they start to complete. Bigger guys could be in and out in 2 weeks from when they start. Just curious if you have any idea. Any estimates from you guys with experience?

Estimate of trees-Mostly White Pine(75%), White Ash, (15%), White Spruce(5%), mix of other hardwoods like Cherry, Poplar, etc (5%)

$_ _.00 per green US ton for hardwood and softwood chips
$_ _.00 per green US ton for grindings going to the energy plant
$_ _.00 per green US ton for hog chips going to the energy plant
_ _ % of mill value for hardwood logs?
$_ _.00 per mbf for pine logs

 

These are all very regionally dependent prices - demand must be high in my neck of the woods, because everytime I drive to work another stand has been logged, and I've heard a harvester running across the road(couple ridges over) for the past month. Jake brakes at 5am(when I'm not already up for work) is getting old

 

I had some loggers ask me permission to use my land as a more direct route to the adjacent parcel that they were logging. I showed them the path they could use provided that they put gravel down as it was a place I could use a gravel road. They agreed and proceeded to tear the crap out of my land, not put gravel down and then disappear. I did not live on the land, so I wasn't there to enforce my end of the bargain.

I'm not going to tar all loggers with the same brush but bear in mind their interests ARE NOT the same as your interests. They (naturally) want to get the most valuable wood to market for the least cost to them. That makes perfect sense, and is exactly what they should do. However, YOUR interests are different. If they supply the forester, remember who he works for. He will be a charming, nice person. Take his advice only if you think it is a good idea for your wife to be paying for your divorce lawyer.

Hire your own forester and pay him for his advice. If you want to use his plan, make sure that the trees are clearly marked, the paths are clearly defined, the price is specified, the time frame is defined, the penalties for deviation from the agreement are spelled out, and that everything is IN WRITING, reviewed by your lawyer, and signed before they come onto your property. If it were me, the logging company would put money equal to the maximum possible penalty in escrow before I'd sign a damm thing. And I know the odds of them agreeing to that are between slim and none. But 100+ years for my trees to grow back happens to be longer than I have left in this life.

If they want to agree to those terms, then I'd trust them to log my land. If not I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw a 48 inch DBH oak. Which I assure you they will take in a heartbeat if you aren't standing guard over it with a 12 gauge and a cranky Rottweiler.

 

Sounds like good advice bert the turtle. rottiman, I may need your assistance in the future!

 

I did a cull cut on our 60 ADK acres 8 years ago and it was probably the best thing that could be done for the forest as it was high graded in the early 90s. The forest was a little rough to look at year one and two but the benefits then quickly kicked in. In my case, I told the logger who is a friend of the family straight up what I was trying to accomplish and then he found enough decent logs away from where we spend most of our time to make it worth his while. He also left me two big ole piles of firewood logs to play with

Be warned that even with someone who has your interest in mind that your woods are going to look like they were logged for a while.