Value of timber

Well this is an important question for anyone that is going to do this work of harvesting timber, logs or any forest product. I don’t think there is a patient answer. The value of forest products varies region by region, on a species and grade basis. I think there are several ways to get to a price for stumpage, or the value of standing timber or trees.

First one should consider that the value of a single item is only one part of the whole forested ecosystem, that is the Sustainable perspective. This is often a key consideration for landowners, because they may have been offered a certain amount by someone else and they are shopping for the greatest return. That can be a problem for an animal powered logger because there are other “values” to their services other than the immediate products extracted. More on that later.

Our group works on a sharecrop basis and pays a percentage of the proceeds of the product to the landowner and that percentage varies according to the value of the product on the market divided by how difficult the harvesting is.
More on that later.

One way would be to back into a price, by knowing what the market value is for the finished product or to the end user and then pro rate each component of getting it to the end used and assigning your cost to the portions of the work you do.

Since I have no idea what that material is worth in your community and region I can’t help you much with a dollar amount, or penny amount.

Our goal is to establish a living wage amount for the work and pay a share after that amount is made by the folks doing the work. This is a complex issue and one we work on daily in Appalachia.

It will be interesting to see how other advise you on this. If there is an interest I will write more about how we pay for stumpage in a later post.

I will suggest that if the landowner inquired about your services as a modern animal powered sustainable logger then the money they get from any low impact harvesting is not as important or valuable to them as the condition of their forest post harvest.

So, don’t sell your services short, try to get all you can and give yourself a chance to actually make a living doing the environmentally sensitive work.

Jason Rutledge
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

J-L there are two easy answers about stumpage rate. First there may be a county or state forestry agency that keeps track of recently paid stumpage values for different species. This would give you a good place to start in terms of understanding what the market is providing. The other is straight line math Mill Price $/MBF – Trucking Exp. $/MBF – Logging Exp. $/MBF = Stumpage $/MBF. MBF= thousand board feet. Mill price and trucking are easy to find out. Logging Exp. is where the points made by Jason come in. I consider that I am providing a two-fold service to the landowners by improving their forest resource, and by marketing their timber asset. Fixed and variable expenses have to be considered, basically what you need to make in a day, dollar wise, to cover your expenses. Then experience will help you determine the volume that you are likely to be able to harvest in an average day, (if there ever is one).
All this aside, you should be able to recognize yourself as a professional, providing professional services. Low impact, aesthetics, eco-forestry, whatever, can be important aspects of what you can bring to the woodland, but it is for your professional capabilities that they should contract with you. In other words what I often say is that the work you do should advance your presentation, it should be something that you can say truly reflects the kind of work you want to do. Just taking a job to satisfy a landowners object can lead to mediocrity. It’s not to say that a job for income is not a good thing, and I have done several, which is why I can say that if you can see a way for you to promote your capabilities as part of the Logging Exp, then I think you will find greater return. Carl

This probably is not helpful to anyone, but it might be interesting. Because a lot of the old farmers here didn’t have much schooling, there is a way of measuring a tree for the amount of wood. This is how it is done

1. Above the roots and buttresses, measure the circumference. Lets say the circumference 40 inches.
2. Take that number (40) and divide by 4 = 10
3. Multiple that number by itself 10 * 10 = 100
4. Measure off 4 varas (11 feet, a varas is 33 inches)

That amount of wood would be 100 BF roughly. Repeat until you run out of trunk.

I deals well with estimating how much wood without getting fancy.

Our dedicated support team has consistently displayed professionalism while not losing the personal touch when assisting each of our customers with their distinctive needs. In the process, we have cultivated many long-term relationships with our valued customers. For that matter, we are grateful to have customers like you to be here every step of the way of our growth. Cheap DAOC PlatBuy DAOC PlatDAOC PlatEVE ISKBuy EVE ISK