Price Comparison

[John Vander]

Just for interest sake, here in Japan we pay 1,073 US Dollars for a new MS261.
It also costs 5,800 US Dollars to plant one hectare of cedar saplings. I think Japan is a bit pricey. How do these prices compare with where you are?

[ozarkgem]

Just for interest sake, here in Japan we pay 1,073 US Dollars for a new MS261.
It also costs 5,800 US Dollars to plant one hectare of cedar saplings. I think Japan is a bit pricey. How do these prices compare with where you are?

Not sure what a MS261 cost. I would guess less the 500 bucks. Do you do sawmilling in Japan? what kind of trees ?

[John Vander]

Mostly hinoki and cedar. Sawmills are all company owned. Many have closed down. I have never seen any hobby sized ones around here.

[ozarkgem]

Mostly hinoki and cedar. Sawmills are all company owned. Many have closed down. I have never seen any hobby sized ones around here.

so what do you do in Japan?

[John Vander]

I pastor a small rural church and teach English at a middle school. I study forestry as a hobby and log my own trees for firewood.

[ST Ranch]

I do not know the number of trees per HA or the age-size/type of seedling you plant in Japan, but here in BC, I purchase 1 yr old seedlings  [with 1inch by 4 inch plug root bals] for about $0.20 each and pay between $0.25 and 0.50 each to plant depending on site, size of job, etc and plant an average of 1000 trees per hectare, so cost is under $1000 per hectare if site prep is not needed.  Site prep can cost another $500 per ha on average brushy or slashy sites.

My Stihl MS 260 cost me $550 [Can] 2 years ago [included extra chain].

Tom

[SwampDonkey]

White cedar seedlings, here in the Maritimes region of Canada, I know cost double that of spruce. They take longer to grow to a plantable size. They look a lot like moss when they come up. I think they cost around $350 per thousand and spruce is $160 per thousand. We plant 1000 to the acre in eastern Canada. If just bare planting it's around $300 an acre here plus seedling cost. We do have subsidies here for planting and if I recall the cost to a woodlot owner is around $100-200/acre depending on field or cut over land and site preparation needs. Maybe your nurseries are not supplying reforestation and more in the landscaping industry. That makes a huge difference in price. Also, most reforestation  seedlings here are grown by government and forest companies. Landscape nurseries are a different market since they grow the trees much larger to.

[flyfish57]

Well, here in east Texas a new MS261c-M is $620.00 for either a 16, 18 or 20" bar.  Also here the MS660 is about the price of the MS261 there.

James

[John Vander]

Amazing how the prices differ. We hardly see any saws bigger than 70cc here since the trees in Japan are tall but not that big. Most forestry workers cannot afford it anyway, so big saws are company owned, usually just one, maybe two. In Japan you can work as an independent forest worker by registering at the local forestry office, but all your gear and machines you need to supply yourself, which is the reason why there are so few independent contractors. An excavator (medium sized Kubota) goes new for 78,000 USdollars. Can't get a contract if you don't have an excavator, since the preparing of all roads, landing zone and excavation is the responsibility of the independant contractor. Not to mention other machinery such as a crawler which goes new for 19,000 USDollars.