Making pasture from clear cut forest.

[SmokinM]

Again lots different here. Except for white oak for whiskey barrels most timber wont pay the cost of cutting it right now. I worked forestry for 38 years and its cheaper than in the early 80's. Cant give pulpwood away free. So all expenses of clearing is on the landowner.
I do agree it can make the property worth more in the future. But in normal times our hardwood will gain about 8-10% in value per year with no extra expenses. This isnt normal times.

Wow Kenny it must have really slid in the last year or so. All of it was bringing a mint. Clear oak was about $1 a bf. here not all that long ago. Neighbor sold some pretty decent timer for over $7k an acre not that long ago, maybe 2 years now that I think on it.

 

[kenny thomas]

Wow Kenny it must have really slid in the last year or so. All of it was bringing a mint. Clear oak was about $1 a bf. here not all that long ago. Neighbor sold some pretty decent timer for over $7k an acre not that long ago, maybe 2 years now that I think on it.

I sold 3/4 acre in March of 2022 for over $29,000. Big difference now.
Some sawmills have closed here, all pulpwood buyers closed. Many loggers arent working.

 

[Travlr]

I sold 3/4 acre in March of 2022 for over $29,000. Big difference now.
Some sawmills have closed here, all pulpwood buyers closed. Many loggers arent working.

You must have added a zero?

Or you sold the land... including the timber?

 

[kenny thomas]

You must have added a zero?

Nope. Best timber i ever seen and best time to sell. And where i had recently retired from Forestry i knew all the right buyers to call. Each buyer wanted the other buyers not to get it. Some of the White oak brought up to $4.25 a board foot.
Kinda like when cows get high and everyone wants to outbid everyone else.

 

[Dave]

That shy 2 acres that I logged in 1984 produced 11 loads of logs. My only expense in logging it was the self loading truck to haul the logs. After trucking I pocketed $14,000.

 

[BFE]

Good thing the white oak was still up this summer, I was pretty happy with our check.

It's sad when fine Red and Black oak goes for construction mats.

 

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

I sold 3/4 acre in March of 2022 for over $29,000. Big difference now.
Some sawmills have closed here, all pulpwood buyers closed. Many loggers arent working.

The sawmill in our town closed and a couple other pulp Mills closed.
I know we were having a hard time getting rid of the timber that we did have cut and on the truck

 

[Caustic Burno]

The sawmill in our town closed and a couple other pulp Mills closed.
I know we were having a hard time getting rid of the timber that we did have cut and on the truck

That industry has really declined in my area.

 

[Travlr]

The sawmill in our town closed and a couple other pulp Mills closed.
I know we were having a hard time getting rid of the timber that we did have cut and on the truck

My house in Arkansas was built with oak lumber milled on the sawmill I got with the place. With lumber prices I'd think there would be a thriving market for lumber from small, backwoods mills.

 

[greybeard]

Timber changed to buying by the ton here..chip n saw. Long. A saw log or 2 off the big end and chips off the skinny end. One price for hardwood (mostly white oak) and a different price for pine. I think back when I had mine logged one of the prices was $18/ton but I don't remember which it was.
When the local plywood plant went down, so did the prices. There was a mill 1 mile from where my place was and about once a year, they'd take some long hardwood pulpwood. They didn't much care what it was either. I sent quite a bit of skinny chinese tallow in with it. Didn't make any $$ on it but got rid of it cheap.

 

[Named'em Tamed'em]

Old timers used to sprinkle shelled corn around the stumps, the hogs would eventually root them out. If you're in no hurry, it will do the trick, a hogs snout is a heck of an excavator.

Pound a metal stake into the ground pull it and dump corn into the hole. Pigs will have the stump rooted up in no time.

 

[Cowman42]

I will speak for my area which is almost 100% hardwood timber. Here if you can buy land already in grass it is probably cheaper than converting it.
Edit, almost every hardwood stump will sprout and grow new trees. Many even the roots will sprout. So spraying often is required.

Up here in Michigan those fresh shoots from the stumps make excellent cow fodder. I unroll or set out a couple round bales and watch the cows ignore and feast on oak, maple, ash and hickory leaves. I try to cut out the black cherry first. Anyplace that the bales were will grow good grass in a year or 2....Lather, rinse, repeat. I have turned about 30 acres of floodplain and upland hardwoods forest into silvo pasture this way. Folks will tell you that certain leaves are poisonous to cattle. Some are. But cherry is the only one here to worry about and unless they are starving they won't eat it anyhow. It tastes bad.

 

[Cowman42]

Most softwood isn't worth squat around here and never was. Only softwood worth anything is plantation red pine, and that ground isn't much good for any sort of pasture.

This is primarly hardwood country. Some of the most valuable hard maple in the world comes from this region. We grow some of the straightest and whitest sugar maple of anyplace.

I went to Forestry school there in Houghton for a bit. Don't forget about the exotic maple. Tiger stripe, Birdseye, there's another I can't remember(it's been 20+years). The sugar or hard maple has a genetic variation and viola $20,000 trees!

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

I graduated from Michigan Tech with a degree in forestry. I bought logs for a mill for a few years, did field forestry for a few, then ran a harvester for the rest of my forestry phase of life.

No ryhme or reason to the speciality hardwoods (Birdseye, curly, etc). No way to manage for it. If you are lucky and have it then you can have some very pricey logs. Also bought many thousands of feet of Birdseye maple as #3 logs and sawed it into pallet stock, when it doesn't make speciality specs.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Up here in Michigan those fresh shoots from the stumps make excellent cow fodder. I unroll or set out a couple round bales and watch the cows ignore and feast on oak, maple, ash and hickory leaves. I try to cut out the black cherry first. Anyplace that the bales were will grow good grass in a year or 2....Lather, rinse, repeat. I have turned about 30 acres of floodplain and upland hardwoods forest into silvo pasture this way. Folks will tell you that certain leaves are poisonous to cattle. Some are. But cherry is the only one here to worry about and unless they are starving they won't eat it anyhow. It tastes bad.

Cattle by definition are grazers, not browsers. Grazing refers to consumption of grass. Browsing refers to consumption of vegetation produced by woody vegetation. This does not mean that cattle will not consume browse. They will. Given an equal choice between succulent browse and succulent grass, cattle will consume the grass. You can put forth all sorts of scenarios where cattle will consume browse. There is a difference between poisonous and toxic. Many woody plants that cattle consume (browse) contain toxins that will have an adverse effect on performance. In particular, but not limited to, tannins. Cattle may even readily consume browse. But, performance is very likely to be adversely impacted. Additionally, browse production is typically well below production levels of 'grazed' vegetation resulting in forage yields well below grass/hay quantities.

 

[SDM]

A friend has forestry tiller. He says that's different than a mulcher. Runs it on the back of a 250+HP John Deere. I don't remember the brand but it came from Europe. He says he can run it over young timber or cut-over land and plant beans right behind it. Has a bunch of this new ground he planted as organic this year. When he gets the fertility right it'll be conventional. It's slow and takes a lot of fuel I'm sure. He's shared a couple short videos and it would make a smooth hay field.