We put most of our new property into tree growth. The forester we hired to help prepare the tree growth application is recommending a select harvest, he has put me in contact with a forest management company that can do the harvest. I'm understanding that in order to stay in the good graces of the State/Town in terms of keeping the tax relief tree growth designation for the land we are highly encouraged to follow my foresters recommendation. My forester and the timber company both seemingly have very good reputations and seem very professional. The timber company has given me a preliminary proposal for the harvest. We are trying to coordinate the harvest on our property with at least one, possibly three other neighboring properties. This is advantageous to us as access to our property would be much easier through my neighbors property which is undeveloped, it is also advantageous to the timber company as it gives them more land to harvest with the same basic setup. For our property, they are proposing a Select Cut-to-lenght (CTL) harvest which would entail using a processor and a forwarder, they would flag the property lines, they would build an access road and landing on my neighbors property and then make trails into my property to harvest approx 40-50% of the standing timber, targeting the mature, diseased and declining trees, estimated at 4-500 cords, however they do not pay by the cord, they pay by "stumpage rates for each specific product", not sure exactly what that means. This is entirely new territory for me and I have no idea what to expect, or even what questions to ask. I use my property daily for recreation to run my dogs, my biggest concern besides not harming the property is to be able to maintain easy access to my property, a big tangled mess of stumps, brush and discarded trees/logs would be extremely problematic for me.
DaveGunter.. stumpage means that they will pay you xxx a Stump after everything is done.. it certainly is easier to see the stumps and know where the trees were cut from. It might cost you some money but you always have the option of requiring some of the brush to be chipped. Then take your tractor and lay the chips on your trails. Of course some piles are good for wildlife. You will find if you do this that your land and your neighbor's land kind of intermex. As the trails will access to both. This was extremely beneficial to me as my neighbors have hundreds of Acres compared to my 22.. if this is done, expect your berry bushes to go crazy and you'll be glad you have the trails to keep use of your land.
You can go online, search the Maine database for stumpage prices. It gives you an average, a high, and a low for various species and if i remember it is broken into counties. It is a bear to find but I can ask a friend that is a forester for Prentis and Carlilse the actual address, he is the person who originally told me about it several years ago.
Found this video today, it helped me understand some. Sounds like the computer in the processor tells the operator the best way to cut the particular log based on species, diameter and length and keeps a record of what's been cut...pretty cool. Still worried about brush etc.
I've seen some of the jobs they have done with that machine. Ponsee harvester and forwarder, little impact and fairly clean after. Might have ruffled some feathers when they did the property next to Pomeroy, another large contractor for this area.
The Mrs has worked the past 10yr as office manager for one of the larger CTL operations in this area, and we are in the midst of planning a harvest on our own property. Brush can be handled different ways. Sometimes they intentionally put it in the road/trail to minimize rutting, but it can also be piled or spread around. They generally cut the logs (to length) so they drop into piles that are semi-sorted for the forwarder to pick up. Stumpage implies the value of the standing wood. When you sell on a stumpage basis, the logging company is buying the standing tree from you, with expectations of recouping their costs for the stumpage, harvest, trucking, overhead, etc from the sale of the wood. Firewood stumpage is in the $5 to $10 per cord range here now. That’s what you get paid. They try to sell it for $125 per cord (processor logs). Seems like they make a killing, but this is a low margin high volume game for them.
The forester can direct you to similar sites recently harvested, as well as ones done 5 and 10 years ago, to give you a better sense of what to expect.
Dave, we had our hunting land select harvested about 20 years ago. It was a great decision to have done and our game ( deer, turkeys, grouse, etc, ) , all benefited from the select harvest. Trails were made where we previously had essentially zero access, and my mom and dad made decent money on it. It's due again for selective cutting, pulpwood mostly. I should look into it. There were some piles made from the brush. Nothing that critters didn't like, and nothing really an eyesore. That I suppose depends on the logging company.
Thanks, that's helpful. The property is mostly softwood (fir, spruce, pine, cedar) then some red maple, some white birch with a little bit of beech, so I don't think much would be used for firewood. "The volume would be made up of fir and spruce pulp and studwood, hardwood pulp, and white pine pulp and logs."
Around here the timber is high quality hardwoods, pretty high dollar. It is not a bad idea to have it scaled on the landing and have an independent forester keep them honest before anything is taken off site.
The stuff in the pics I posted are probably going to be saw logs. The poorer quality will be railroad ties. I don't see any veneer there or if it is, hasn't been graded yet. Veneer quality will have a plastic tag pounded into it and have a bar code and serial #.
The first part of our harvest area has been marked by the forester. First they had us flag the boundary, tying ribbon every 50’ or so. They would have done it, but we decided it was cheaper for us to. They did “take” marking - marking the trees the loggers are to take. This is a crop tree release, so they pick out a high quality tree and mark the trees around it so the high quality one will grow faster. Like weeding the garden. They also marked some nice Red Oak, which will help pay for the job. I’m pretty excited to see the logs pile up on the landing, and see a woodlot of nice trees left behind. Pic below is of the front of the property, and the part marked is off my right shoulder, dropping away but not quite as steeply. The house and barns are on the left, and a neighboring solar farm is in the center.
Malformed and/or competing trees marked for removal. I hate to see Sugar Maple cut, but likely will never tap this far from the house.
Your woods are quite different, DaveGunter , but the foresters will do similar work. This forester was UMaine trained (graduated from there the same year I did, but of course we didn’t know each other).
