how are your markets

[TaylorJohnson]

How are your markets out there ? Are things getting any better for any of you. Last week I lost my pine post market so now my small diameter stuff is going for pulp and LP . That is about a $20.00 per cord drop , I don’t think I care to work that hard to make up that kind of a loss. I did get a call this week form a hard wood mill and I am meeting with them Friday to talk prices so it looks like I will be back in the hard wood again before to long :D. I wont know how to act in oak and maple any more but I will figure it out I guess. Taylor Johnson

[Gabe Ayers]

Taylor,

Well we have markets which is better than some points in the late spring when mills went through a shut down period that reflected complete lack of demand for all species of Appalachian hardwoods and softwoods. We generally sell saw logs and some pulp wood to one family owned system that at one point had five major rough saw mill operations spread out over a 100 mile radius. Today only three are still operating. The two that shut down are still buying logs delivered to the yards but are not processing at those sites, but shipping the logs to the mills that are running and therefore paying less for the logs to offset transportation costs.

This situation lead to the loss of several small private producers that stopped cutting timber in response to the shut down periods and now the overall volume of logs delivered as “gatewood” is far less than previously, so the mills have continued to harvest with their own crews, and poor harvesting practices. I suspect these saw mills are just hanging own and trying to break even to keep their crews employed and waiting for better times.

Our HHFF group has three practitioners that are selling some logs to this group. They are all still working and selling some wood to them, but have adapted somewhat to the weak markets. The wood sold is what we can’t do anything better (economically) with. To be definitive about those markets the prices paid are about what they were over ten years ago, particularly for eastern white pine and red oak. We have been able to sell lower value hardwood species into the railroad tie market in raw log form as well as sawed ties, again with ten year old prices….

How some of the practitioners have adapted is to sell their services as “restorative forestry” or to “clean up” forest for private landowners that often give the low quality wood that results or is produced from a “Worst First” single tree selection harvest to pay for the cost of the services. This can work on certain sites where the inventory is overstocked and the value of what is to be removed is great enough to pay a reasonable wage for the practitioner and the result is aesthetically pleasing to the landowner. Often the landowner will want some firewood from the harvesting and that ends up being a benefit from the management services. The balance of firewood is a product sold by the practitioners.

Other HHFF practitioner adaptations have been to do more “value adding” on site by harvesting these worst first individuals and processing them for various local uses and specialty markets that are not part of the commodity defined conventional forest products industry. The other markets include, timbers for timber framers, fencing boards, rare species specialty products, such as black locust decking, walnut and cherry lumber, curly maple (soft) cabinet and instrument woods, flooring, firewood, fence posts, landscaping timbers, mower and wagon tongues, sawdust and planer shavings for animal bedding and just out right services for hire practicing restorative forestry for private landowners on an hourly rate, working with the landowner’s own objectives of forest quality improvement.

Keeping as much of the value from the forest products as close to the source is a principle we have officially promoted and supported, as a public charity, for over a decade.

So markets are weak, when existent, but there is work out there for superior services and this may be the basis for a diversified animal powered forestry operation. There are several practitioners on this board that have similar experiences and our collective experiences continue to grow.

Another small aspect of income generation is the wild crafting of specialty forest products such as edible gourmet mushrooms. Our long term relationships with landowners provides access to the previously harvested
woodland to harvest mushrooms on a seasonal basis to be sold locally to organic food distributors and directly to restaurants. There is some education needed for the harvesters to identify these special forest products and their value.

We look forward to hearing the experiences of others.

Taylor, I recall we spoke once about you traveling to Kentucky to work with a fellow that had contacted us before. What ever happened with that? We have heard that this fellow is no longer in business, so you may have made a good choice. Where are you working now?

[Rick Alger]

Softwood logs and pulp are at 1994 prices. Hardwood is probably lower than that and hard to move. Firewood market glutted.

I’m taking a cut-and-skid contract this fall and winter in softwood.

[Scott G]

Dimensional mills (the ones that are left) are swamped with beetle kill. 2 million acres and growing exponentially! We are going to lose 98% of all the mature lodgepole in the State. Ponderosa is starting to get hit hard at lower elevations as well, soo.. glut of material with minimal milling capacity and hammered market for dimensional lumber. That said, one of the local post mill operators ran into my dad at the bank the other day and wanted to know why no one was bringing him any product. Great little P&P mill he has, I use to be his major supplier. The material he needs is in the 5″-8″d range, much smaller than most of the material flooding the market. Some of the best money I ever made was working post patches. Guess I better get busy…

[TaylorJohnson]

Jason,
I called that feller and he never did get back with me so I finally quit calling but I am glad I did not go if he is done. I pick a lot of mushrooms in the spring and fall. In the fall I can pick huge amounts of sulfur shelfs and they are good eating. I never have tried to sell any because I give a lot of them to folks that like them ( mostly older folks ) . I have picked over a hundred pounds a day before. I have also considered peeling some of the pine that I have been cutting for value added products . Lots of cabin building going on up here ( near Hayward WI ) , well not lots any more but some. And that is were I am living and working right now about 15 miles from Hayward WI. I had a meeting with a man to day that buys logs for Bessie Forest products and he gave me a price list for red oak and hard maple and it sounds about like you all are saying about like 10 years ago or better but they are buying and that is good.
Hey Scott I just found out that a buddy of mine that I use to play ball with works for the forest service out in Colorado some were. I talked to him the other day on line but not much we are going to get in touch though. May be you know him.
Mr. Alger , if you don’t mind me asking what will they pay out your way for a man to cut and skid with horses for a contract like you taking? Taylor Johnson

[Rick Alger]

Haven’t agreed on an exact price, but I expect it will be between $120 and $130 per thousand. Marked wood. Thirty to forty logs to the thousand. Mostly red spruce.

There is another another company that pays $90. They usually clearcut.

[Scott G]

@Rick Alger 10903 wrote:

Haven’t agreed on an exact price, but I expect it will be between $120 and $130 per thousand. Marked wood. Thirty to forty logs to the thousand.

$3-4 a stick. How many logs hour/day cut & skid in spruce are you thinking you’ll be able to average to the landing? I’m spoiled on pine; lot of limbing on spruce but it’s light, can you make up for it by really loading up each turn?
-Scott

[near horse]

Hey Scott,

Is lodgepole considered a “valuable” species in CO? Here in ID people hate it – the money – what there is – is in Doug Fir/Larch, Yellow pine (Ponderosa) and some Cedar. Talk about a limbing headache – try limbing some Ponderosas!

As someone mentioned, at least mills are operating. Just try and hang on.
All the best.

[TaylorJohnson]

Hey guys how about Jack Pine and balsam for limbing 😮 not fun. Taylor Johnson.

[J-L]

Like Scott mentioned the pole and post is what’s keeping our local mill going. They are sawing quite a little lumber still, but not what they were. They have a green treat plant that they sell quite a little product out of that really helps along with the pole and post.
A friend of mine is supplying the poles for them and is very busy. It’s getting a lot tougher to find a good stand of poles though. Especially that he can get his truck to.
Lodgepole is just hammered here with beetle kill too Scott, and as you said now the bigger trees are going fast. The whole forest is nearly brown. Looks real bad.

[Carl Russell]

Rick Alger;10903 wrote:

Haven’t agreed on an exact price, but I expect it will be between $120 and $130 per thousand. Marked wood. Thirty to forty logs to the thousand. Mostly red spruce.

There is another another company that pays $90. They usually clearcut.

When I started in 1986 I charged $90/MBF to cut and skid logs. Now I won’t go into the woods for less than $150, but I figure I need to get between $175-$225/MBF to make it worthwhile.

Rick, no wonder it is so hard for you to cover costs. That is one tough market.

Carl

[Scott G]

Geoff,

It depends on where you are in the State. Up north lodgepole is predominant so most mills are geared towards it. The dimensional mills prefer it for dimensional stability. Down south spruce and true firs are the predominant species used from higher elevations. The pondo from down south in the San Juans where I grew up are pumpkins and have very decent value. Across the state large diameter Doug-fir is very valuable, especially for larger dimensional lumber like structural beams. It all depends, like everywhere, what the local markets are and what is in demand. Small diameter lpp is in demand for p&p. Small-diameter pondo is a liability, although some markets are slowing emerging.

Even though traditional thinking regarding small diameter = increased harvesting costs = decreased revenue is normally correct, post & poles from lpp can be fairly decent money, especially for a small horse logging operation. We are paid by a piece rate. If you are only bringing a handful in and it’s a small mill they may pay varying prices for different diameters but that is not the norm. Usually you will get paid the same rate for posts that are in the 5-8” d range. The trick is to sort your wood and not send the 8”stuff to the post mill. A 5”d x 8’ post scales out to 5bf on Scribner (our local scale). Average dimensional mill prices locally were running ~ $280/MBF. That 5”d post gets me $2.85 at the p&p mill which translates into Scribner scaling @ $570/MBF! You can get a lot more 5-6” posts on a load than larger diameters. Conversely, that 8”d x 8’ post/log that I would get $2.85 for at the p&p mill scales out at 20 on Scribner and I would get $5.60 for it at the dimensional mill. It doesn’t take too many 8” logs to show up at the dimensional mill’s yard, however, until you get the evil & nasty looks. 16’ poles with a ~ 4-5” butt and a 2-3” top bring around $4.25 at the mills and much more if you sell them direct to private folks. You can yard out a lot of poles/rails with each turn and load a whole bunch of them on the truck. One of the aspects that make lpp p&p so attractive is that there is very little limbing in a typical dense, closed-canopy lpp stand due to self pruning. With poles/rails you can often fell, buck off one or two rails, buck off/slash the top, and you’re done (dealing with small-diameter spruce like you guys do in the northeast for pulp gives me the heebie-jeebies thinking about all of that limbing done for pulpwood prices). You can also easily hand deck/load the material so a single guy with a single horse can do fairly well by just loading his pickup or trailer and heading to town at the end of the day. You don’t get rich but you definitely can do OK.

The key to any of this is to know your markets well and pull off good sorts on your landings.

Take care,
Scott

[Carl Russell]

When I started out we had both a guard-rail market for red pine, and a cabin-log market for red spruce, red pine, and even white pine, that made similar economics. for me, as to what Scott describes. Now only white pine cabin-log remains, albeit very good money, leaving red pine to very low sawlog prices, or utility poles which is typically pretty good, $250-$275/mbf on the landing.

The old guard-rail market was for small pole 5-7″d X 7’6″, as well as for sawed posts 8-12″d x 12′. The prison farm used to supply all the State’s guard posts until the steel market went south in the 80’s and steel companies got a monopoly on the guard-rail market.

Carl

[Rick Alger]

Scott,

To answer your earlier question, probably 120 – 150 pieces per week. I’ve done over 70 in a day, but I can’t expect to average that because there are a lot of blowdowns and undergrowth that have to be cut for trails along with all the limbing and brush piling. This is obviously not a lucrative job, but in my area at this particular time it is as good as gets.

[lancek]

Hey Taylor,
I use tolive in Hillsdale I use to own the old post office there, Till the state decided to put the highway through it! I was wondering if anybody in that area was useing horses Lancek

[Author]

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