cucumber tree

[Sawyerfortyish]

I for one have never been able to figure out how any store can sell econo studs for the price they get and make money. Buy the time you cut skid truck saw plane kiln dry and truck again how can they sell 2x4 studs for around 2 bucks. What did they pay for that tree?Could never figure that one out.No small mill can beat that. But I always tell my customers that you can't compare mill lumber to home depo. I'ts two differant things. My 2x4 is 2x4 theres isn't even close. So thats why when you find a little nitch in a market you have to take advantage of it.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Our wholesale buyer is not taking any Pecky Cypress for a while. That will hurt us. They do not advertise, anywhere.

  We take our last load in today and I will offer them a deal. I will give them 25 bdft IF they will put an ad in the paper. :  That's $137.50 for the ad.

  I put an ad in for Solid Cypress and Red Cedar and we have gotten 16 calls, so far. I returned 5 calls last night and everyone SAYS they will show today and tomorrow.  ??? ???

  The buyers want Oak 2 X 8's and 2 X 12's, up to 16'.  
  I asked them how we are supposed to handle 2 X 12 X 16' Oak.  We are getting $1.50 bdft, so, I guess we can figure a way to handle it. ;D ;D

  Niche markets are all we can depend on. Most folks here don't know the difference between GOOD lumber and HD or Lowe's. Sometimes we will find someone at the box stores that are undecided at what they need for a project. The hardwood prices are waaayy too high. We just slip 'em a business card and we have made a few sales that way.  ;D ;D

  Sometimes ya just gotta edjumikate them potential customers.  : ;D ;D ;D

[Ron Wenrich]

We got an order for a trailerload of 2x3x16 tulip poplar.  Fetches $450/Mbf, picked up.  Production drops about 15% due to the extra handling on the headrig.

That's the second one I cut, and it looks to be a pretty continuous order.  They are used on chicken houses.  They sure do bend a lot, but they are looking for a constant 2", which I can deliver.

[Rod]

Hi Ron,so how mch is cucumbertrees going for up your way?

[Ron Wenrich]

No cukes over here.  You need to get up on the plateau to get into cucumbertree.

Tulip poplar is probably around $300/Mbf, maybe a bit more for real good stuff.  Our uppers are about $800 for 8/4.  

Any cucumber gets thrown in with the poplar.  I know guys that used to throw basswood in with poplar.  We just sold it to the casket companies.  As long as it takes a stain, they can use it.

How much of this stuff do you have?

[Rod]

Ron,I don't know how much I got.I don't see know one cutting it around here either ,must not be worth cutting.

The sawmill is giving about $320m for poplar cut down to 7'' on the small end,and no bigger then 14'' on the big end.They load them up on trucks and truck them out too some were.

I see a lot of little trucks with their bumbers draging loaded up with those poplars heading to the mill.

You don't see many big poplars around here.I don't really see to many big logs of any kind anymore..I was talking to a logger friend and I asked him why he had those big Red Oaks just laying there,he said they were to big for the sawmill.

I think the mills are cuttting smaller trees now days.

[Ron Wenrich]

Now you've hit one of my biggest problems with the industry.  They aren't managing for quality, they're managing for fiber. That may work for softwoods, but won't work for hardwoods.

Why would you want to cut down a 14" red oak, or an 18", for that matter?  That tree is going to be putting on FAS lumber, if it has any quality to it.  Instead, loggers, landowners and a whole bunch of foresters have been cutting those good producing trees for some quick bucks.  Those smaller trees are only going to produce 1 Com, at best.

Now, that doesn't mean no small trees should be cut.  Poorer quality trees due to form, defect or species need to be thinned to improve the stand.  That isn't happening.  Most "thinning" comes from sawtimber trees to release smaller trees.  A lot of times those trees aren't worth the release, and should have been cut before the larger trees.

Mills are geared around the marketplace and log resource.  If that's all that is available, then they'll build mills geared for smaller logs.  It is a spiralling downward of your resource and your marketplace.  

It sounds like these logs are going to a scragg mill to be made into pallet stock.  Pallet stock is worth about $350-420.  Small logs have about no volume when you scale them.  You need bunches of them to make 1,000 bf.  Logging is more expensive, as well as milling.

Time to get off the soapbox.

[Frickman]

Ron,
Make room on the soapbox for me. I have seen the same downward spiral in log size and quality around here. I look at alot of timber where every logger and forester who has been there before me has convinced the landowner to do a 10" diameter limit cut. I tell them something a little different, manage for valuable, large trees and they think I'm some kind of crackpot. Sometimes you feel like one lone voice in the wilderness.

I have a neighbor logger up the road who is in his mid 50's. He said that he is going to make all the money he can over the next 8 to 10 years and retire. He doesn't care about how his jobs look, or the future of the forest, because he'll be living in Florida by then.

[Bruce_A]

Someone once told me ;  If it isn't worth doing right, it isn't worth doing.       To each his own, I only do the ones that feel right to me.

[Norm]

I don't think that's preachin Ron, sounds like good common sense to me. Some of the forestry management around here is terrible. They go in and take everthing down to what will make pallet and leave the junk. I don't blame anyone but the landowner that allows this, it's his job and responsibility to be a good steward of the land.

[Ron Wenrich]

Sorry, but I don't abide by the "its the landowners fault" line of rhetoric.  We're supposed to be professionals and have ethics.  If we can't be stewards of the land through our actions, why do we really expect a landowner to be anything else?  

That's like a barber saying a bad haircut is the clients fault.  They told him what to do.  I don't have experience cutting hair, so I expect my barber to do a good job.  If he can't, then I don't go back to him.  The difference between cutting hair and timber is about 20-30 years between harvest as opposed to every other month.

There's the operator who takes what he can, whenever he can.  That's just greed, and the profession really doesn't need them.  They cause more damage then can be cured.  I've seen it run through the whole profession, so education isn't the key.  Its attitude.

Then you have the operator who just doesn't know any better.  They think that diameter limit cutting is a viable forest management tool.  They also think that high grading works well - they usually call it thinning.  They cause damage, but usually its not quite as bad.  Education can help these guys.  This is where SFI would be useful.

Last you have the guy who does it right.  They don't make as much money as the first couple, since they are usually taking out the junk and getting lower incomes.  Usually no one recognizes the good quality of work they are doing until years later.  The landowner can win with this guy.  

Landowners do have the final say, but most times the operator, whether a forester or logger, has the sales input and can sway the owner.

[Norm]

I don't agree with that, it is the landowners responsibility to leave the land they own in better shape than when they got it. It is also their responsibility to hire good foresters and loggers. To blame it on someone else is passing the buck. Saying "I didn't know any better" is a cop out. There are plenty of programs to learn these things before you go out and hire someone. References are easy to check, county foresters are free advice, management classes for forestry are free from the colleges.

[Tom]

Scratch the 'free management classes"  down here.

I think that a landowner who is actively in the business of growing trees will take an interest and try to do the right thing.

Many landowners have assumed the acreage from an estate and don't know what to do.  They are ripe for the picking.  Believe it or not, the world is full of indisputable, thieving, con-men.  There are many who are so good that they can take advantage of a knowledgeable Forester.  

There are also foresters who are intimidated by Zoning departments, tax authorities and city councils.  Many times, they are the only ones standing between the land-owner and the bureaucrats.  When the forester wimps out, everybody loses.

It' s easy to find fault with the bottom of the barrel because there is nothing left to blame once you reach it.  There are arguments that I find invalid.  The invalidity of the arguements tend to be when the word "responsible" is used but "fault" is being thought.  The land-owner may be held responsible for the shape of his property because he holds the deed but there are many things that are out of his hand.  Many land-owners are corporate entities, many are multiple family members which may be complicated by there being absentee land-owners.  I'm sure some are just plain stupid and some are greedy.  It's the professional who is hired to offer the experience that can make a hero or fiend out of the landowner.  

If you find yourself in need of a Lawyer to protect you from some criminal lawsuit and the lawyer has another agenda besides yours, you could be in a lot of  hot water.  Is it your fault if you lose the fight?  Maybe not.

We are all responsible but, saying that the "buck stops here" only shows that you are willing to accept responsibility, not that you caused the problem.

If we all knew everything, there would be no need for us to hire someone's expertise, nor no need for that person to educate himself and sell himself as an expert.  We don't each know everything so we depend on mechanics, plumbers, lawyers, carpenters, et al.......  to lead the way and guide us through that part of the world that we don't feel comfortable in.

It's not "passing the buck", as I see it.  It's excepting responsibility and all party's need to be responsible.  

I agree with  Ron on this one.

[Frickman]

You guys have been talking about landowner education. The one uphill battle we have as an industry is the average property owner's lack of knowledge concerning timber. The problem is that a timber harvest for many people is a once or twice in a lifetime thing, and they have no basic knowledge or experience to draw from. The average person on the street can tell you that a new Cadillac is worth considerably more than a rusted 1970's Pinto, or a twenty room mansion on a hill probably costs more than a fixer-upper on the wrong side of town. Cars and houses are two things that most people are familiar with, unlike standing timber.

Most, but not all of the potential harvests I look at are motivated by one thing, money. There has been a change of ownership in the property, or some major expense in the family. The property owners are looking for the biggest buck they can find, but don't know what they have. They do like Tom says, and rely on our expertise. The unscrupulous operators prey on these folks and tell them whatever they want to hear, anything to get their signature on a contract. The landowner says they want all the money they can get, but leave some trees. The oak, cherry, and poplar are wiped out leaving soft maple and black birch, "junk trees" in our area.

I refuse to be involved in any harvest that is not conducted in a responsible manner. I won't even buy the cut logs. If I do, my name will be asssociated with that job for the next fifty years, no matter how many times the property changes hands. This has cost me some business, and good deals, but in the long run will hopefully pay off.

In my area some of the most vocal complainers about the diminishing size of logs are the same people who are doing 10" cuts. I tell them that you have to leave the small trees to get big trees, it's not rocket science.

I would place the blame for some forestry practices on both the industry and landowners. Some members of both groups are motivated solely by greed, and we are all affected by it.