I'm in southeastern kentucky. I just purchased 120 acres. The forestry dept just finished doing a stewardship. I have 3582 board feet for the 120 acres. I had them narrow down a 70 acre section of the best timber and it came to 4347 board feet. 12-17dbh is 1587 board feet. 18-22dbh is 1957 board feet. 24 plus dbh is 708 board feet. I would like to recoup the money I spent on the property and clear a few acres for food plots. How many MBF per acre does a land owner need to do a sealed bid?
There are a lot of variables that you aren't seeing in the figures.
If you have 5K bd/acre of pure junk then the answer is they will want all 5K/acre to harvest any of it. If you have stave or veneer grade timber than they may only need 1K/acre to make it feasible. It also depends on the logger.
In the bigger picture you need to look at what is left behind and how is that going to grow. Will it grow into pulp because it is a poor quality tree? Or does it have the circumstances to grow into sawtimber and maybe stave/veneer?
I understand wanting to pay off part of your purchase price but remember, if done properly you can harvest every 15 years in almost any timber type and generally increase the quality and value of the stand. I would highly suggest a forester's help.
Clark
From an economic perspective, in KY sales that draw the most interest seem to share the following attributes:
Avg DBH: 20" & up
Average tree size: 200'+ avg tree size
Feet Per Acre: 4000'
Overall sale size: 200k+ feet
Always exceptions, but when I used to buy standing timber as a salaried buyer any bid sale invitation that didn't meet or exceed those minimums went into the waste basket.
Veneer, percentage of desirable species, truck access, skid length, distance to mill all factor in.
Sales meeting the above criteria might get 6 or 8 bids. Small tracts under 100K ft often do not attract any major players (Consultants' or mills) and get cut on shares rather than bid. Consultants also seem to favor a 200k+ bd ft sale size as well. Boundaries, flagging, site visit costs, all need to be recouped. 10% of $10,000 sale doesn't cover the expense to set it up.
I've had woods run low volume sealed bid sales of 1500 bd ft/acre of sawlogs and 3 cords/acre of pulpwood. The bidding depends on what's in demand at the time and the quality of the sawlogs, species, logging restrictions etc. and logging chance at the time of sale.
If you do not get any bids on the timber sale, then you can have an oral auction or negotiate the sale directly at a minimum price to a possible interested party.
We always did a lot better selling by the ton than sealed bids. We had bids to 265 on one stand that we no-saled. It brought 400 by the ton.
Quote from: stavebuyer on December 05, 2022, 02:54:52 AM
From an economic perspective, in KY sales that draw the most interest seem to share the following attributes:
Avg DBH: 20" & up
Average tree size: 200'+ avg tree size
Feet Per Acre: 4000'
Overall sale size: 200k+ feet
Always exceptions, but when I used to buy standing timber as a salaried buyer any bid sale invitation that didn't meet or exceed those minimums went into the waste basket.
Let's see my last sale in WI:
Avg DBH 12"
Average tree size 40'
Feet per acre 500'
Overall sale size 65k feet.
They also cut 200 cords of pallet logs and a 1000 cords of pulp, so I guess it is all what markets one has in the area and what equipment the loggers are working with.