Wood markets look grim!

[Woodhauler]

Been getting calls from wood buyers up here in maine and the word is DON'T look to sell much softwood till atleast june! The price is dropping on spruce& fir 2 dollars a ton in verso at bucksport and verso jay mill havn't made the drop yet but are thinking about it! When one mill drops they all follow suit! Verso has enough wood in piledown yards to run till end of july! >:(

[Ken]

I think part of the problem is the fact that the winter was so good.   All the mills in this area (the few that are left) have their yards full and other pile down yards full as well.  Partly because of the mild winter which allowed for higher production in the bush.  I too expect the softwood markets, especially pulpwood, to be slow to get going this spring.  The only exception seems to be that our hardwood/poplar mill in the area is looking for wood and has kept some contractors on through the spring.

If I'm not mistaken some lumber prices have steadily increased although modestly over the past several months.  That's good news but I am skeptical of a long term trend just yet.   Do your part: build a fence, shop, house, deck, etc, etc, etc  How I would love to see the markets of the mid 90's again.

[Okrafarmer]

Our best prices for pulp, so far, are $21/ton for hardwood, and $16/ton for softwood. This has held fairly steady for the last year or so. Forest harvesting takes place year round in this area, so there isn't the wild seasonal fluctuation that you have up north. I've heard repeatedly that pulp prices are significantly higher several hours north into North Carolina, but you would burn it off in fuel and labor getting it there from here.

[WDH]

Okra,

Are those prices delivered?

[Okrafarmer]

We deliver them to the log yard. They ship them out of the area on tractor trailers. Nobody I know of comes and picks up pulp if you cut it.  We are trying to start picking up saw logs other people cut, but normally only for free. We would have to charge people if we picked up pulp for them.

So yes, those are the prices we get when we deliver them to the log yard.

[Mooseherder]

Building hardware is going through the roof.
Lumber may be affordable but I think all the other components for building aren't cooperating.

[Okrafarmer]

Building hardware is going through the roof.
Lumber may be affordable but I think all the other components for building aren't cooperating.

Then I guess wise builders will learn to use more dove-tails, mortisses and tenons, and pegs.

[Jamie_C]

Our best prices for pulp, so far, are $21/ton for hardwood, and $16/ton for softwood. This has held fairly steady for the last year or so. Forest harvesting takes place year round in this area, so there isn't the wild seasonal fluctuation that you have up north. I've heard repeatedly that pulp prices are significantly higher several hours north into North Carolina, but you would burn it off in fuel and labor getting it there from here.

WOW !!! Thats not much money for wood. Around here thats roughly what you get just to put it at roadside. The delivered price for pulp around here depending on grade would be anywhere from 2X to 3 or 4X that price.

[WDH]

In most places in the South, pine pulpwood in tree length form in good volume on good logging land (the better tracts, not the fence rows) is bringing $7.50 - $10.00 ton on the stump and the delivered cost is $25.00 to $30.00 per ton.  That is between $68 and $80 per cord by volume, but all wood is sold by the ton

Wood costs in the North are higher to much higher than in the South.  The logging crews tend to be higher volume focused on productivity, and that keeps production cost lower.  Back a few years ago when I was heavily involved in logging, a two skidder crew would average 16 loads per day or 80 loads per week on a clearcut.

[Woodhauler]

In most places in the South, pine pulpwood in tree length form in good volume on good logging land (the better tracts, not the fence rows) is bringing $7.50 - $10.00 ton on the stump and the delivered cost is $25.00 to $30.00 per ton.  That is between $68 and $80 per cord by volume, but all wood is sold by the ton

Wood costs in the North are higher to much higher than in the South.  The logging crews tend to be higher volume focused on productivity, and that keeps production cost lower.  Back a few years ago when I was heavily involved in logging, a two skidder crew would average 16 loads per day or 80 loads per week on a clearcut.

Up here in maine we figure a cord of pine pulp at 4400LBs  so that would be 66.00 cd. minus 25 a cord trucking and 10-15dollars a cord stumpage that wouldn't leave much! Glad we get more upm here for it!

[WDH]

SYP is figured on about 2.675 tons per cord or 5350 pounds as it is quite a bit denser so it is not an apples to apples comparison.  A ton is a ton, though.

[Okrafarmer]

Right here we just don't have a paper mill nearby to haul to, so we get less from the log yards which collect it and haul it far away. We wouldn't sell pulp except for the fact that we are already being paid to haul it off of people's front lawns and we have to go SOMEWHERE with it.

Another thing you northerners might find weird is that hardwood pulp includes a lot of oak, maple, and cherry in it. The better logs go for sawlogs, and the rest end up going for pulp. All species, generally, except walnut, which they won't take because of the chemical makeup which I guess is not helpful in the paper making process, or so I've been told. So we have to sell our scrap walnut for firewood, for even less money.  >:(  Fortunately unfortunately, we don't have that walnut problem very much around here.

What I don't understand is why so many thousands, maybe millions, of acres around here, were planted to pines, when hardwoods grow just as fast, and are worth more for both saw logs and pulp. Must have been a change in the markets from the time those were planted until now.

[Ron Wenrich]

You can get more volume/acre in pine due to the condensed tops and straighter boles.  You also can grow pine on poorer soils than hardwoods. 

Up here, we have very few outlets for hardwood pulp.  Our softer hardwoods are used for shavings mainly on poultry houses.  The hard hardwoods go for firewood.  Better markets and better prices.  Stuff that is too gnarly to put into firewood goes to the pulp mill.

The bigger mills and many loggers don't fool around with pulp at all.  Most foresters don't even mark it.  No money for the forester.

[Tarm]

I don't know how you fellows do forestry without a pulp market. For the last thinning of my oak/maple hardwood property (73 acres) the harvest was 3 loads of sawlogs, 1 load of bolts and 32 loads of pulp. The stand looks great. The junk is gone. There are 20 to 40, 12 to 16 inch high quality crop trees per acre ready to pack on the diameter. It turned out great. I guess I'm lucky to be in NE Wisconsin.

[SwampDonkey]

Without a pulp market up here, it would come to a screeching halt. For some reason at the height of things, they would pay ridiculous prices for veneer that had to be hauled several hundred miles. But it was only trickles of volume which makes it all the more perplexing. There must be hard maple and yellow or black birch closer to home, unless no one wants to cut it for some reason down there. But maybe some of those guys are like Irvings, pay low close to home and pay better far off.  :

These days, and since the 80's it's production based for the most part. A hundred acres of hardwood can be cut in a week with 22-30 cord/acre. Woodlots have a mix, there are logging contractors and there are those that do it for enjoyment and it might take 2 weeks to cut a load or all winter. The guys on the farm next door, cut one load of hardwood, 1 load of softwood logs and one load of cedar all winter long with a farm tractor and winch. The truck was stuck for 2 weeks because it was so mild a winter. Some of the hardwood they sold for firewood and used the main paved road as their skid trail for 3 miles to their customer. Which if the road commissioner knew it, they would be strung up. :D Now my father cut lots of wood with an old tree farmer and cut at least 10 cords a day which he hauled every night. He had a skidder man that was more company than of much use as far as bucking wood.

[Ron Wenrich]

The way they do it is with diameter limit cuts, and only in sawtimber.  The state marks pulp on public grounds, but private foresters rarely work in pulp.  Since firewood has come into the marketplace, its easier to get some of the independent loggers to cut pulp.  Not so for most mills.  Consultants sell to mills, so they high grade along with everyone else.  I can't think of a bid sheet that I've seen that had pulp on it.  Many guys won't even mark 12" trees.  Mostly 16" and up.  Forest management at its finest.

There are a few guys with whole tree chippers.  But, those markets are starting to dry up.  In the areas that had pulp cutters, they also had deep coal mines.  Those mines needed mine props.  That was a better market than pulp or firewood.  I don't know if many pulp cutters are left.

[Okrafarmer]

There is, of course, more than one use for pulp/chip logs. Paper, reconstituted chip-based lumber products, biomass fuel, and so on. If your area has trees and not a single one of these scrap log buying entities, then forestry will suffer, as what do you do with all the junk? Firewood is definitely an option, but you have to do something with (A) the tops of the timber trees and (B) the junk trees that are no good for logs. If you don't cut the junk trees down, your woods will get high graded repeatedly and suffer from weeds.

Around here, there seems to be little difference between good soil and bad soil. Hardwood and pines grow equally on both. Tulip trees (yellow poplar) grow as fast as pines, just as straight, and are more valuable, they are a pioneer species and are the tallest hardwood on the east coast, and probably the naturally straightest. Like pines you can usually expect to get at least four logs out of each mature tree. Pine = $170/k at the most and only if the log is 12' or over, and poplar = $250/k for anything that is not an outright pallet log, which would be $175/k. If in a managed forest lot, (or a fertilized lawn) poplar can grow up to an inch a year. The mill we sell to does not distinguish for the amount of growth rings per inch, so a log is a log to them as long as it isn't pallet. Oak grows slower but is $300/k.

[Ron Wenrich]

Why do you have to do anything with the tops?  They work equally well for keeping nutrients in the nutrient cycle.  Only 10% of the nutrients are in the bole.

Our local biomass mill converted over to natural gas.  You're going to have a rough time competing with NG or coal.  Only if you charge a tipping fee.

We have no pine market.  You hardly see a pine tree in the woods.  Tulip poplar only grows on the better sites.  As you go up the ridge, the soil peters out and it gets taken over mainly by oak.  The further up the ridge, the lower quality oaks take over.  These are areas that should be growing pine.  But, oak is king. 

[snowstorm]

so you top it at 8 or 10" and leave the tops in the woods? up here if you did that they would call you a wood hack. i take it down to 3"

[Okrafarmer]

When I say "tops" I mean the woody stem part of the trunk at the top of the tree, not the small limbs. Of course the small limbs and the very top of the tree would stay. But the part of the tree that is still a log but not suitable for lumber is what I refer to when I say the tops. It will take a good while for the log to rot down. If you leave all those logs in the woods, it is a mess. Not a big problem if you are clearcutting, because it will take 20-40 years (or more, depending on location) for the trees to be harvested again. But if you are selective cutting, leaving logs all over the place makes it harder when you come in the next time to do your next selective cut. Some trees rot faster than others, of course. But just a mess and a waste of resources. I suppose if you have the financial incentive to take only the saw logs and leave the rest, and everybody's ok with that, then that's just life. Just unfortunate you can't get a little extra money from the pulp end of every tree.

[Okrafarmer]

Our pulp buyers have no minimum diameter.  One "asks" for a minimum length of 14', the other, which pays $1 less /ton, asks for a minimum length of 8'. In both cases we sometimes sneak some slightly shorter ones in there and they haven't complained yet, since they don't get out and measure it. They both have a maximum diameter of 24" and will take rotten wood as long as it doesn't break when they pick it up. We sell every limb we can for pulp-- not because it would be worth it if we were cutting a forestry tract-- but because we have to get rid of it all and firewood is not worth messing with around here. I just wish somebody here received 4' pulp, like the markets in Maine used to.

[SwampDonkey]

4' pulp in Maine in NB was generally softwood pulp (spruce-fir). Never heard of aspen or hardwood pulp shorter than 8 foot. Even when they cut the Upsulquitch R., for the aspen in the valley, it was not 4 foot to my knowledge and this was horse logging. They had 250 men working teams in the woods on that job.

[snowstorm]

what was bosie in rumford used to take only 4' except pople that was tl but it had to be good wood. the ip in jay took everythig either 4' or 8. i dont miss 4' wood

[Okrafarmer]

The only reason I wish for it is because we end up with a lot of branch pieces that are shorter than 8' that we have to do something with.  :-\

[Maine372]

dad always said 4ft is just like 8ft, but it takes twice as long to load.