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New to timber sales

Started by abstoff15, January 17, 2019, 12:09:46 PM

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abstoff15

Hey All,

Looking at doing a timber sale on about 180 acres of floodplain forest along the Mississippi River in Missouri/ Illinois. Species are mostly silver maple and cottonwood. Curious about the measurement standards for cruising.

Here's what we've been doing so far:

10" min diameter for saw logs
16' log length (also doing 1/2 logs)
Getting about 29k board-ft/acre

Do we include large straight branches when we record merch height?
Anything else we should be doing that we aren't?

Thanks.

Autocar

Probably sound try to find a buyer before you cut that much low grade. Pretty tuff in my part of the county to sell those species and make a living.
Bill

Autocar

Probably Should sorry about that  ::) .
Bill

abstoff15

Probably should have said... Profit isn't that big of an issue. This is a seed tree harvest as part of a forest management prescription. 

Texas Ranger

29K sounds like a clear cut, and low grade material.  I worked some of the flood plain stuff around Cape Girardeau some years ago.  In those species a 10" diameter will not sell, unless the market had drastically changed in the last few years.  You can cruise anything, but merchantable species and stems may be a problem with this.
The Ranger, home of Texas Forestry

labradorguy

I'm working in the same area. I don't know what you are going to do with the silver maple that would keep you in the black. Those river bottom cottonwoods are pretty trees, but no demand for them. I sold a dozen trailer loads of sycamore last spring and they were a hard to sell too. The mills would take good butt logs, but under 24" it wasn't worth the diesel it took to skid it. I sold some seconds, but they were off trees that were 4' dia. No way branches are getting bought.... at least not at the mills I frequent. Those boys are all about walnut and oak with an occasional hard maple snuck in... lol A couple pallet mills around but what they pay doesn't offset the price of the diesel lately. Don't even think about taking them over to the People's Republic of Illinois.... They are hitting loggers with a timber tax now and you also have to deal with the IL DOT in Chester and Arnold. I'm told that they really love MO loggers coming across....

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