So I got about 2 million dollars worth of equipment on my land as I type this, and the Logging Contractor was explaining to Katie and I that his equipment can not work in mud. Now mud is defined as "if my feller-buncher sinks more than 6 inches, the skidders will be unable to pull the wood out". What the fanny-pack? SIX INCHES? THAT IS IT? Supposedly this has to do with how a grapple skidder cannot drop its twitch and then winch it out of a hole like a cable skidder can. Or how my bulldozer can practically float on water and still pull wood. This presents an interesting situation because that means on these 70 acres I want cleared, much of it being wet ground, they cannot operate. That also means they can only cut wood that is already easy to get too. Well I can do that with my Kubota, and if my bulldozer is sold off, then I cannot exactly get to the difficult wood that they leave behind. Yet with so much wood left behind, I really need to sell sell my bulldozer to pay off my property taxes, because the sale of this wood is going to be far less then I anticipated. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..... I am not impressed with mechanical logging right now I can tell you that!
What does the forecast say? Is the ground going to freeze back up? Does the contract allow them to reduce the area that they cut? Sounds like you are being paid for what is scaled. I can guarantee that if they paid a fixed amount for the wood up front, they would find a way to get that wood out... sounds to me like they are making excuses to maximize their profit margin and not go after the difficult stuff..
I am not a logger, but I am guessing what he means is that 6 inches of mud today will be 3 feet of mud after a few passes? My little tractor can make one deep hole, and I know they are mild compared to A skidder. Is he on the hook to clean/grade roads etc at completion?
Yeah I think that might be the case. Right now, due to the hurricanes they are paying insane amounts for fir and spruce in log length what is called "Studwood". They have not even bought studwood in the last few years, so people are scrambling to get this type of wood out and to a market while the market lasts. They claim that will end come mud-season (April). I think he is trying to cut this wood off me, then scramble to another landowner and get that wood off, then maybe come back and cut the rest of the wood (not studwood, but hardwood and scrub brush). Here we call it high grading: swoop in, grab the best stuff and get out. Part of it was not the guys fault. I had some massive trees here, Spruce 2-3 feet in diameter, stuff I had been saving, but it was all red-hearted...too old and rotted so there was only half of what we thought it was in volume. So I would like him to go deep into the wetter areas and pull the rest out, but its smaller in size. It will still go for studwood, but its hard to go cut wood that is a foot in diameter instead of 2-3 feet in diameter. I understand that, but naturally I want that wood gone before the market is lost too.
Good point, but he is not on the hook for rut clean-up. I am clearing this land to make room for fields so it will be stumped and regraded after he is done, so ruts do not matter to me.
I really have no idea. I have always cut wood by the cord or by the thousand board feet, but this is by the ton. It also is different in that I am not actually cutting the wood so I am just being paid for my wood and so the price is 2/3 less then what I normally get paid. In this instance...for what it is worth, $9 a ton.
Thanks, but sounds low. Last I new around here was $280/1000 Just wondering if that went up. Next time I'm over by the log yard I'll stop in and check prices
You are comparing apples to oranges. Studwood is NOT logs. Stud wood is wood that includes wood big enough to be logs AND pulp. Stud wood can have a top of only 4 inches, so crook, knots and size has little bearing, that is why it has to be compared with former pulpwood prices because that really what it is. That is what makes Studwood so appealing...almost anything without rot is taken, and for prices higher than pulpwood. It is possible to remove the logs off the studwood and sell just the studwood part (8" down to 4"), but it would not stack up on the truck well, nor be what the scale yard would take. They don't want load after load of tiny stuff. They will take the good with the bad, and as a landowner with lots of softwood, it is better to take most of the wood, then just the super good stuff at a higher price. It is like a homesteader having 50 chickens. Do they sell their eggs to a person who just wants Grade A eggs for $5 a dozen, or every egg they produce to a person for $4 a dozen? If they sell every egg for $4 a dozen, they do not have to worry about egg losses, storage, electricity to run the refrigerator, etc. Those are costs that eat into the extra $1 gleaned for selling a dozen eggs for a $1 more. For Maine landowners, the fact that we have not been able to sell softwood pulp for 3 years means, and the two paper mills that do take small quantities of it shutting down (Jay and Rumford), many of us want to sell it now while we can. We have already lost 1/3 of our forest value, how much more will two lost paper mills plummet the price? Studwood is only possible now because of the hurricanes that hit Florida and Texas which is causing a surge in the building boom; it won't last forever. In fact it is predicted to end in April.
$280 is price at mill deck= you cut you skid you process and you haul. $9 is price on the stump =you no touchy .
No...you are comparing apples to oranges still. You have to make the conversion from tons to board feet. There is 2 tons of wood to the cord, and a thousand board feet is equal to 2 cords of wood. ($9 x 2=$18) ($18 X 2=$36) $36= No Touchy Then add in for the limbs and tops that can be chipped into biomass= $38 for no touchy Then double it again because logs have a 8 inch top and Studwood is a 4 inch top=$76 per thousand equivalent, no touchy.
The point is delivered price vs on the stump. It's where everyone not in the know thinks theyre getting ripped off because of prices they hear.
Yes...your point was well made. Sorry to offend you as I did not mean to do that, just doing the math.
$280/1000 bdf, , landowner gets a third, logger get a third and trucker get a third. I definitely understand log prices. Just never heard of ton prices. Different areas different types of payment.
LodgedTree never heard of studwood, softwood logs at $280/1000 bdf goes down to 5" probably used for the same studs just different terminology
No, stud wood is different then logs because studwood can be any length. The sawmill taking the studwood takes the wood, and then cuts the wood to get the most out of it. It might mean cutting out crook, rot and cutting the wood to length. With logs they are cut to specific lengths and are scaled. Any defect is accounted for, and deducted.
