Pecan Wood

[howellr]

I purchased a small farm here in Florida awhile back. It has several large pecan trees which don't have much of a crop. It pecan a marketable wood?

Thanks,

Bob

[ellmoe]

   Yes it is, but usually my best sales are to an individual. Properly cut you can get anywhere between $1- 2/bf for green lumber.

   Are you sure about giving up on the pecans, they have good and bad seasons, and need fertilizer to produce well. A nice grove of pecan trees are worth more than their lumber value.

Mark

[getoverit]

Welcome to the forum, Howellr !

To answer your question, yes, it is marketable. Unless you have a rather large supply that would be worth the efforts of a large scale hardwood logger, it will end up costing you more to get the trees into log form than it would be worth to someone as logs.

For the most part, Pecan logs in small quantities are only worth anything to someone that has a small sawmill. Keep in mind that the logs have to be transported, milled, dried and planed into lumber before they have any real value to anyone. My best guess right now for dried and planed dimensional lumber out of pecan is around $2 per boardfoot on the wholesale market. You can call a local hardwood dealer in your area for an exact quote for your area. The price they would be worth in log form, assuming they are perfect logs with no trash metal in them, no internal rot (which is common in pecan) and straight as an arrow would be less than 1/3 of that price.

In other words, dont quit your job and bank on the trees bringing you a great quantity of money.  If you want to cut them down, mill them into boards, stack and sticker them in a protected area to dry for about a year and then send them through a planer and/or shaper...... THEN you might have something worth about $2/bf.

[DanG]

Where in Florida are you, Bob?

[brdmkr]

Welcome to the forum Bob.  Another thing about pecan is that most of the trees grown commercially these days are from grafted stock and have branches very near the ground.   Lumber yield from these may be low.  If you have a use for the lumber yourself, sometimes the wood can be pretty spectacular.