Mills taking all hardwoods (correction: not "mills" but any industry buyer)

[livemusic]

EDIT: "Mills" isn't really the word I meant, I meant wherever loggers send trees, lol

When loggers clearcut a tract of hardwood, these days, they usually cut every stem. Do mills take all hardwoods or do they exclude species? The most common logged trees I know of are white oak, red oak, sweetgum, black gum, hickory. And other oaks.

Less common trees I see here... persimmon, sassafras, pecan, dogwood, red maple, mulberry, locust, sugar berry, hackberry. Some of them grow to provide a nice, long enough stem of appreciable DBH. Not necessarily huge but 6" to 12" is not uncommon.

[nativewolf]

Mills specialize but (edited- but will often take the major species listed in  the hardwood market report) finding markets for things like Sweet Gum, Hickory, Sassafras, Pecan, Persimmon, Locust , Hackberry, can be very hard.  Often the only option is a RR Tie Mill or a Pallet mill.  Or pulp.  Most clearcuts have only a few species going for sawtimber, then a pile of mixed tie logs or pallet logs, then pulp.  Sometimes due to fluctuations in pulp prices the RR tie logs and pallet logs go off to the pulp mill and sometimes the pulp sits rotting on the ground.  Hickory is a species that bounces in and out of favor, sometimes it can actually be valuable when flooring and cabinet makers get a strong market.  Persimmon is a niche market that used to be in demand by the golf club head makers..tough today.  Black locust is often more valuable sawn or split into posts but we can get up to 140/ton here for post length locust (compares to mid grade oak on a ton basis).  The more the loggers split the orders into different sorts the better pricing they will achieve, for instance we sell YP butt logs to a specialized buyer and take 70% higher on the good butts.  The problem is sorting it all out.  

For this reason small loggers will often take a mixed truck of hardwood to a middleman log yard that will buy everything.  

[livemusic]

Mills specialize but (edited- but will often take the major species listed in  the hardwood market report) finding markets for things like Sweet Gum, Hickory, Sassafras, Pecan, Persimmon, Locust , Hackberry, can be very hard.  Often the only option is a RR Tie Mill or a Pallet mill.  Or pulp.  Most clearcuts have only a few species going for sawtimber, then a pile of mixed tie logs or pallet logs, then pulp.  Sometimes due to fluctuations in pulp prices the RR tie logs and pallet logs go off to the pulp mill and sometimes the pulp sits rotting on the ground.  Hickory is a species that bounces in and out of favor, sometimes it can actually be valuable when flooring and cabinet makers get a strong market.  Persimmon is a niche market that used to be in demand by the golf club head makers..tough today.  Black locust is often more valuable sawn or split into posts but we can get up to 140/ton here for post length locust (compares to mid grade oak on a ton basis).  The more the loggers split the orders into different sorts the better pricing they will achieve, for instance we sell YP butt logs to a specialized buyer and take 70% higher on the good butts.  The problem is sorting it all out.  

For this reason small loggers will often take a mixed truck of hardwood to a middleman log yard that will buy everything.  

When somebody logs a tract and they come across even one nice persimmon (or other, it's just an example), do they cut it and haul it or does it just go to waste if they don't find any more?

As for sweetgum, man, they log the heck out of this around here these days. I thought it was junk but heck, I was told it was bringing more than pine. This was a few years ago, I don't know now. But I sure see them hauling a lot of sweetgum still.

Thanks for the info.

[nativewolf]

Well rr tie grade logs might fetch more than pine in some areas, then some specialty mills peel sweetgum for interior veneers, baskets, etc.  

Yes, persimmon is the sort of thing that many loggers can't even identify when they get large and don't have fruit.  They'll throw it in the pulp pile.  Also other specialty woods like box elder.  That's a very special wood that can be quite expensive if saw well.  Etc etc

[Southside]

In far too many cases persimmon, box elder, sycamore, hackberry, gum, cherry, etc., will go to a low grade pallet / tie mill as "mixed hardwood".  Now a good log buyer will pull out the fruit wood and other higher end logs and re-sell them to another specialty buyer at a hefty profit.  Some were even doing that with grade oak and walnut this spring and selling it to the export market.  In the commodity world gum and sycamore almost always end up a tie and pallet wood and have been paying more than pine for a while now.  Sawn correctly gum and sycamore can beat about any other hardwood lumber value out there, even white oak and walnut when you consider the price of the log.  It's a funny game.