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A few weeks ago I chopped down a ~20+ inch walnut for my neighbor and cut it up into firewood. Yesterday he had a whole slew of people stop by and they were picking over the pile looking for turning stock and cane material. Was that anyone from here?
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Nope but I hope that tree was rotten for it to end up as firewood. Walnut is getting quite pricey these days.
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It was a total crud tree. Nothing more than ~3' straight. I'm sitting on probably close to 5K bd ft of clear walnut so I am set for a long while. My family also owns 23 acres that has a walnut tree every 20-30' that I trimmed in 1979 back in NY. For a long while I thought they would not be worth much but now they are popping way up in price. Forester that lives next to my brother found the grove of walnut trees and he was salivating. His company wants first dibs on the grove and he said there are at least 500 veneer logs are a clear all sides. We are giving serious consideration to taking out a few to put some money in the bank.
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Curlycherry said:
It was a total crud tree. Nothing more than ~3' straight. I'm sitting on probably close to 5K bd ft of clear walnut so I am set for a long while. My family also owns 23 acres that has a walnut tree every 20-30' that I trimmed in 1979 back in NY. For a long while I thought they would not be worth much but now they are popping way up in price. Forester that lives next to my brother found the grove of walnut trees and he was salivating. His company wants first dibs on the grove and he said there are at least 500 veneer logs are a clear all sides. We are giving serious consideration to taking out a few to put some money in the bank.
I don't have any idea what knowledge you have when it comes to selling timber but I will give you my experience.
First and most important, hire a forester!! One that works for YOU. I have been told that very act will get you 30-50% more for your timber because they will hold an auction. Ours was closed bid.
Make sure your forester has a contract that guarantees and protect your rights.
Such as, a passage that states that as soon as they take the main truck, the rest of the tree reverts to your ownership. That protects you from the logger selling the tops to a secondary fire wood company.
The contract should also state that they have two years to remove the trees or they revert to you.
A passage stating that you can keep them from logging if the conditions (generally rain) makes it so that they are tearing up the land.
Around here a forester takes 10% of the sale but the protection you get is well worth it IMO.
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Thanks for the tips. I grew up with a family firewood business and I have been around the logging business a good chunk of my life. My brother still runs the business and he is big in the Syracuse NY area. His next door neighbor his head forester for Gutchess Lumber so we have a forester in house pretty much.
Funny story the forester was working on his land one day marking out the place for his house and another neighbor stopped and started to fill the forester's ear with how they had to work together to put my brother out of business because his log pile and firewood piles were an eyesore. The guy went on for ~5 minutes before the forester said something to the effect of "half the logs in that guy's piles were marked by either me or my men. He is using a product the company I work for needs to sell. He is putting food on my table. I want to see him have logs and firewood on his property, now get off mine and never, ever step foot on it again!"
Edit to add when the time comes to pull logs out we will be doing the cutting and skidding ourselves. My brother has a 90+ Hp Kubota with loader and grapple and a Farmi skidding winch. We will take them out under ideal conditions so as to not harm the soil or the remaining stand. When I pruned the trees I thinned so that straight skid roads were well placed.
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Curlycherry said:
Thanks for the tips. I grew up with a family firewood business and I have been around the logging business a good chunk of my life. My brother still runs the business and he is big in the Syracuse NY area. His next door neighbor his head forester for Gutchess Lumber so we have a forester in house pretty much.
Funny story the forester was working on his land one day marking out the place for his house and another neighbor stopped and started to fill the forester's ear with how they had to work together to put my brother out of business because his log pile and firewood piles were an eyesore. The guy went on for ~5 minutes before the forester said something to the effect of "half the logs in that guy's piles were marked by either me or my men. He is using a product the company I work for needs to sell. He is putting food on my table. I want to see him have logs and firewood on his property, now get off mine and never, ever step foot on it again!"
Edit to add when the time comes to pull logs out we will be doing the cutting and skidding ourselves. My brother has a 90+ Hp Kubota with loader and grapple and a Farmi skidding winch. We will take them out under ideal conditions so as to not harm the soil or the remaining stand. When I pruned the trees I thinned so that straight skid roads were well placed.
Sounds like you have it under control but if he is the head forester for a lumber company then he wouldn't be working for you and from what I have told, you wouldn't be getting the maximum value for your logs. That is only achieved with an auction.
To give you an idea, our last timber sale there were six bids if I remember correctly. The high was almost doubled the amount of the low bid!! We are talking five figures of difference.
Another plus with the foresters we used was that they had a list of reputable timber companies. Both made it know that if they had any problems with a timber company cutting something they were not supposed to cut or any other issues, they would not be invited to the next auction.
Good luck
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Robert Adams said:
Nope but I hope that tree was rotten for it to end up as firewood. Walnut is getting quite pricey these days.
Well I'm glad I have 5000 Bd Ft of black walnut and just brought in 2 more large walnut trees to cut up. Also have a couple thousand Bd Ft of English Walnut too.
I'll trade you for some mesquite or desert ironwood.
Bud
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The last I bought was $5.25 Bd/Ft
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Back when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s walnut logs were rare. Rumors of single logs selling for upwards of $10K were heard, but I never knew anyone that got that price, just rumors. And the logs were never just "around" like they are today. All through the midwest there are walnut trees everywhere. People planted trees in the yards decades ago and the squirrels moved the nuts and now it is common to see trees around the periphery of every woods. That is where they do very well. I've driven through small towns like Northfield MN and lots of Iowa small towns where most all the trees lining the streets and in people's yards are walnuts.
There are the onesey-twosey big monsters in people's yards that are ~40-80 years old. I know of one in St. Paul in a front yard that is all of ~6' across. Lots of other nice ones around too that are 20-30" in diameter in yards.
A few years ago an old neighborhood of St. Paul (Highland Park) got hit with a tornado or strong winds and a friend and I went up with his skid loader with grapple and we scoured the down trees. I would find the trees and negotiate with the homeowners to get the walnut logs. I would cut the log and he would get it out of the yard. We offered cash (usually $100-200 depending on the log) or to make something out of the wood for their house. We scored over 10,000 bd ft of nearly clear logs. I didn't waste time with anything that wasn't nearly clear and certainly no metal in it. My friend did not know how to grade logs or how to cut them with a chainsaw or how to look for problems like nails.
We had a woodmizer come in and work right in the front yard of a friend and the sawyer worked for over a week making boards. A few people stopped by and asked if we would saw up a log from their property that was not walnut. They wanted lumber from the tree to remember the tree. We did that for ~10 people and charged a small fee for handling the log and delivering the lumber.
When we were done we had one of the tree services chip up the slabs and I used a dust collector to get every bit of sawdust out of the lawn and driveway. We ran one heck of an efficient operation. I did it just for fun and the guy that got the lumber used some but sold the rest. He bought me my midrange Chainsaw for my help. I did it mostly for the fun and not see the lumber go to waste.
