Log Prices?

[ehp]

Everything else is going for timbers or flooring

[Hans2017]

The timber appraisal that you posted is from a farm very close to me. My real job is RealEstate and Farm Management with the same company that has the listing, but out of our office in Albia IA. 
  The White oak there is pretty nice slick stuff. I have not walked the Walnut but that volume is normal for this area. 
 The price is high and that farm has sold twice recently. If you have any questions or need any unbiased opinions on things in this area let me know.

[Walnut Beast]

Thanks. Totally agree with you on the price. Going to look at a couple farms tomorrow with tillable and timber. Will see what the woods look like. Thanks for all the tips guys

Hans2017 I'm actually going to be a hour away from your office. Lineville Iowa 

[Larry]

I have quite a few mature white oaks on my ground.  Never cut any but a few days ago thought I would take down enough to make a couple thousand board foot of KD lumber.  Every tree I've cut has a hollow butt from ground level up three or four foot.  All are good looking trees.  Sure hurts the grade yield.  Just curious if this is a problem in other locations.

I've cut a lot of red oak off the same ground without any heart rot or hollow spots.

[stavebuyer]

I find the opposite here. White Oak being the longer-lived species, has fewer heart rot issues. Abnormal amount of heart damage many times is the result of past fire damage. White Oak will tolerate a drier site and fires on south/southwest slopes burn hotter and more frequently. 

[SwampDonkey]

No oak to speak of here except on the mountain side and tiny pockets that have been high graded mostly for firewood and pulp. But any old sugar maple over 20" is more than 1/3 heart or rotten. The veneer market never wanted more than 1/3. Yet for yellow or white birch the heart never mattered at all, had to be sound wood of course. Have my doubts they are paying much around here anyway, the land of cheap wood.

[nativewolf]

When you say "same ground"  are there red oaks you have harvested beside or close to the WO?  Were all the WO close to each other?  Is this close to an old field?  Or close to a small ravine?

Common causes of this sort of rot are fire and animals and logging.  Which one?  Old farms often had trash dumps they burned and if the fire got out a bit, sometime terribly so.  Livestock (pigs and cattle in particular) are notorious for rubbing bark off younger trees, so if the area is close to an old field and there is fencing further back that's a clue.  Logging...self explanatory.  

If you can take a thin cookie from the butt of a log (first undamaged 1/2") you can get the age of the tree and the rot infection.  Then compare that to a RO.  See if these are from the same time.  It could be the RO and WO come are different ages due to prior harvests.  If the WO are close to an old logging site and they logged it with mules or ox than it is very easy for nearly every tree to get scarred and have rot.  The difference is the scarred WO will not rot all the way through and a scarred hickory or RO will often rot out so much they get destroyed by weather or just die.  So the fact that the damaged WO is still standing is testament to it's toughness while only undamaged RO remain.  

The easiest way to understand is cut a few trees and look at the rings.  Fire damage rings are pretty easy to spot once you have seen a few.  

[Hans2017]

WB, I have shown a few of the farms on the market in the Lineville area. That area tends to be high priced as it is a pretty well known "celebrity" type hunter/landowners. 
  In response to the question about the hollow WhiteOak here it is normally due to cattle. The information about fire makes sense also.

[ehp]

been moving abit of white oak veneer , more than normal per week as log buyer seems not to be as picky

[Walnut Beast]

Hans2017 send me your contact info. I was outside Lineville looking at a farm yesterday

[ehp]

Had a good talk with one of the log buyers I know that ships all over the world and he says almost all markets over seas do not want to see a single log until maybe Sept and thats Europe and China and the rest , red oak is moving abit here , hard maple is dead, walnut is moving but not great , white oak is moving but needs to be true white oak , prices are down but not brutal at this point , there are mills sitting with zero logs in their yards as they shut down until things get better , so take it as you want but this guy knows everybody and deals with everybody and tells it like it is . Like he said donot stick your neck out buying bush or equipment unless you can afford to sit on it for a couple years 

[nativewolf]

all of our walnut is going in containers, whole tree.  They will ship all summer apparently.  RO veneer going offshore too I hear, it's paying $1.5 but what to do with the low grade RO.   That's been our trouble from day 1.  

Domestically it is as you say..not brutal just not good.  The folks cutting hard maple are in more trouble than others that is for sure.  Business has never been more brisk on the property side, we will have to stop taking clients again pretty darn soon.  Another 3-4 and we'll be at capacity for our 15 year rotation plan.   

[ehp]

Containers is what this guy mainly does and a lot of them and ships to every corner of the earth , lots of guys here have to cut cause they got payments to make but they are loosing dollar value compared to later fall, I know a couple loggers bought really costly hard maple bush standing last fall and never touched it cause the price fell so bad , only thing is when you bid on those bushes you put 25% of your bid in with your bid and if you win you got 30 days to pay the rest of your bid so now your tie up a lot of your own coin and could be 2 or 4 years before you cut a single log and everyone is saying hard maple will not return to what price it was at 

[ehp]

Most loggers have more timber to cut than they can cut 

[nativewolf]

Containers is what this guy mainly does and a lot of them and ships to every corner of the earth , lots of guys here have to cut cause they got payments to make but they are loosing dollar value compared to later fall, I know a couple loggers bought really costly hard maple bush standing last fall and never touched it cause the price fell so bad , only thing is when you bid on those bushes you put 25% of your bid in with your bid and if you win you got 30 days to pay the rest of your bid so now your tie up a lot of your own coin and could be 2 or 4 years before you cut a single log and everyone is saying hard maple will not return to what price it was at

So that's how the deals are done up there.  Really hurts when the price falls.  Wow.  Hope you are not out of money on HM.  There is a guy in NY, just outside Albany that has some coin.  Interest rates are brutal though.  

[stavebuyer]

Was glancing at the Hardwood Market Report this morning. Hard Maple is really getting ugly and Walnuts spring rally has evaporated. Thick stock FAS Walnut was down $125/1000 from last week. Not sure I can recall any species ever having a 3 digit price drop in a week and the 4th of July vacation lull is still three weeks away. Good time to oil up the fishing reels.

[nativewolf]

Our Walnut buyer said stop..please..no more.  Seriously, he has to buy another 3-4 loads but then he wants us to hold off on Walnut.  Lots of people got cut off last week.

RO prime cut from 900 to 600 last week, not great news.

YP prime cut from 900 to 600 as well, even worse for us.  So we have peeler orders starting this fall but no high end.  

RO Veneer is smoking- $1800 max for good rift logs.

YP veneer won't show up til October

CO veneer and quarter saw market is doing well, from $2.5-1.25 for 2 side CO QS logs

WO is smoking

[stavebuyer]

Our Walnut buyer said stop..please..no more.  Seriously, he has to buy another 3-4 loads but then he wants us to hold off on Walnut.  Lots of people got cut off last week.

RO prime cut from 900 to 600 last week, not great news.

YP prime cut from 900 to 600 as well, even worse for us.  So we have peeler orders starting this fall but no high end.  

RO Veneer is smoking- $1800 max for good rift logs.

YP veneer won't show up til October

CO veneer and quarter saw market is doing well, from $2.5-1.25 for 2 side CO QS logs

WO is smoking

Our QS buyer is on a tight Quota, they are still paying stupid money for logs they don't really need. If these genius managers ever figure out that supply is seasonal and impacted by weather, we could quit the shadow dancing.

[Cedarman]

Just got a note from a broker we bought cedar cants from a year ago.  Back then had to wait in line.  Now wants to know if I need any.  Our sales are very good and no price drop.  I quote, they say saw it.

[stavebuyer]

Our QS buyer called me this morning and they are putting him out to pasture on Friday. He isn't being replaced. Their most senior buyer. I have been dealing with him 15 years or so. Sad.

[nativewolf]

Just visited ours at his mill, but he owns the mill- small shop.  They were out of logs because loggers don't want to cut now.  He had to cut timber he had bought to get any logs.  Pricing is a bit down but not terrible. 

[Hogdaddy]

Whats the latest anyone has heard on walnut, veener or lumber logs?

[nativewolf]

We sold 60k feet this summer of field walnut with a few veneer here and there.  Veneer was far down and grade logs as well.  It moved down all summer then 1st of july our 3 buyers asked us to stop whereas in the previous year they asked for it all summer.  

China is apparently full of walnut.   

Veneers were $6-8 for good good logs.  Sawlogs were 2.5 for good sized sawlogs.  Amish were the only ones buying at the end.  

How are your mat logs doing?

[Firewoodjoe]

Everything is still moving here but the big diameter short pallet logs. Not exactly good but steady. The mat logs will be the next market full. Pulp will move but most guys aren't happy with the prices. If pulp keeps moving and crating or grade stays steadily trickling out we'll keep doing good. 

[nativewolf]

Our tie log pricing ok, $0.45.  We're mostly going to cut WO this fall so a tie market lets us clean up a bit, I hear in PA it is up to $.50-55 for tie logs but the cost of shipping does not make that possible.