pine trees

[Caustic Burno]

Here a turn key job without any bells or whistles or government help would be no more than $70/acre.

How I do it. I use heavy planters that you pull with a tractor. Each planter weighs around 2500 lbs and will subsoil, scalp and plant the tree in one pass. If you didn't have access to this type equipment and it was in a pasture you might want to first check for a hard pan and if present pull a subsoil shank threw the field every 12 foot to break the pan then come in behind this and plant the trees just to the edge of the furrow. This can be done by hand or with a machine.

Jo they use a similar setup here with a small dozer with a shear blade in the front pulling the planter.

 

[skyhightree1]

Checked my policy and it insures against fire lightning explosions airplane crashes winds floods timber theft and ice
I also talked to the new company and they cover same. if you get beetles you will have issues. Insecticide sprayed is best protection from beetles.

 

[Jogeephus]

Sky have you actually sat down and calculated what they would pay in the event of a claim? I think if you run the numbers the only thing the policy is truly good for is some catastrophic event where the salvage value is zero in only high quality grade timber. For nearly two years I have been involved in a claim with an insurance company which seems to be a pretty straightforward claim. Not a dime has been paid to date but the legal fees continue to mount. Not knocking Davis Garvin, they are a good company but I think you have a policy that is offering you more psychological protection than true financial protection.

insures against fire lightning explosions airplane crashes winds floods timber theft and iceI also talked to the new company and they cover same.

Just being the devil's advocate but if an airplane crashes on your property don't you think the owner of the plane will have to pay for the damages? So their claim of covering you is about like my guarantee I give on my $3000 calves where I guarantee you that you will see up to 5 pounds a day gain. Guaranteed! How many do you want?

 

[Deepsouth]

Thanks to all for the input. Pines may be something for me to look at. I want to keep the land but quit the cow business. Also pines naturally did not grow on any of the land in the past.

If pines were not native to the area I would be very reluctant to try to grow them there. I live in longleaf country and years ago the longleaf was cut out hard and lobblolly was planted because it would grow faster than longleaf. However the lobblolly never made as good of quality tree as the native longleaf. Now we are going back with the longleaf. I believe whatever was native to a site is the best tree to plant. We have lower wetter sites with heavier soils that are more suitable to lobblolly but the sandy ridges are much more suitable to longleaf. Nature is smarter than we are and if pine was not native then there's a good reason for it.
Also I think pine trees are a very poor investment for a property with decent soils. Not only is there risk with pines such as beetle or storms but the return per- acre, per-year is not great at all. Timber sales can bring in big checks but that can be very deceiving. I've had tree farmers tell me that after a 30 year rotation they made less than $50 an acre per year. That was also confirmed in a study by the longleaf alliance. We can rent land to row croppers for more than that.
I'm not saying not to grow any pine trees. We have sites that are not suitable at all for crops nor very desirable for cattle. Trees work well there. On our own land we have more acreage in timber production than cattle but I am trying to turn that around some.

 

[skyhightree1]

Sky have you actually sat down and calculated what they would pay in the event of a claim? I think if you run the numbers the only thing the policy is truly good for is some catastrophic event where the salvage value is zero in only high quality grade timber. For nearly two years I have been involved in a claim with an insurance company which seems to be a pretty straightforward claim. Not a dime has been paid to date but the legal fees continue to mount. Not knocking Davis Garvin, they are a good company but I think you have a policy that is offering you more psychological protection than true financial protection.

insures against fire lightning explosions airplane crashes winds floods timber theft and iceI also talked to the new company and they cover same.

Just being the devil's advocate but if an airplane crashes on your property don't you think the owner of the plane will have to pay for the damages? So their claim of covering you is about like my guarantee I give on my $3000 calves where I guarantee you that you will see up to 5 pounds a day gain. Guaranteed! How many do you want?

lol When policy was first written to my grandparents it was fairly cheap now not so much so I am debating whether to continue the policy or not we just replanted most of the timber properties about 2 years ago. maybe 8 years ago we lost alot of timber due to a fire we had up our way. I am beginning to think you are correct again mr Jo about the protection.

 

[Jogeephus]

Sky, I've looked at it pretty hard and can't see where you can come out on top over the insurance company except in the case of a hurricane where you have large valuable trees. The policies I looked at work about the same but there are differences. The gist though is you set a price for the value of the timber and then you pay a premium of about $6 per thousand in value to insure 70% of the value. So say you have a stand of trees that is really worth $3000/acre but because you are a tightwad and want to save money you low ball it for the insurance to save yourself some money and say its worth $2000. So you end up paying $12/acre/year for the insurance coverage on 70% of the value. Say then a fire comes through and wrecks your place and you get someone to come cut the timber. They know its a fire sale so they don't pay you top dollar but they don't screw you too terribly bad and they pay you 60 cents on the dollar. The tract then cuts $1800/acre compared to the $2000 you had it set at. That's a $200 paper loss ($1200 real loss) BUT you only had it insured at 70% value ($1400) so you actually made $400/acre so the insurance doesn't pay you a dime yet you still lost money.

Now on the other hand, say you are not a tightwad and you tell them its worth $3000/acre and it still cuts $1800/acre your loss is $1200 but they only insure 70% of the value ($2100) so they end up owing you $300/acre less the deductible - whatever that is. Now here is where things get iffy and subjective. The question could be posed by the insurance company as to why you didn't salvage the timber sooner and for a better price? You will then have to pay to prove your case and this is harder than you might think except in the case of a hurricane but if its because your neighbor set the fire and it got on you it will fall on his insurance policy so they have yet another out.

If you think about it, this is about the same reason you will rarely if ever see an insurance company total a brand new car. They have much sharper pencils than we do.

 

[skyhightree1]

Sky, I've looked at it pretty hard and can't see where you can come out on top over the insurance company except in the case of a hurricane where you have large valuable trees. The policies I looked at work about the same but there are differences. The gist though is you set a price for the value of the timber and then you pay a premium of about $6 per thousand in value to insure 70% of the value. So say you have a stand of trees that is really worth $3000/acre but because you are a tightwad and want to save money you low ball it for the insurance to save yourself some money and say its worth $2000. So you end up paying $12/acre/year for the insurance coverage on 70% of the value. Say then a fire comes through and wrecks your place and you get someone to come cut the timber. They know its a fire sale so they don't pay you top dollar but they don't screw you too terribly bad and they pay you 60 cents on the dollar. The tract then cuts $1800/acre compared to the $2000 you had it set at. That's a $200 paper loss ($1200 real loss) BUT you only had it insured at 70% value ($1400) so you actually made $400/acre so the insurance doesn't pay you a dime yet you still lost money.

Now on the other hand, say you are not a tightwad and you tell them its worth $3000/acre and it still cuts $1800/acre your loss is $1200 but they only insure 70% of the value ($2100) so they end up owing you $300/acre less the deductible - whatever that is. Now here is where things get iffy and subjective. The question could be posed by the insurance company as to why you didn't salvage the timber sooner and for a better price? You will then have to pay to prove your case and this is harder than you might think except in the case of a hurricane but if its because your neighbor set the fire and it got on you it will fall on his insurance policy so they have yet another out.

If you think about it, this is about the same reason you will rarely if ever see an insurance company total a brand new car. They have much sharper pencils than we do.

Jo you have all excellent points and you will be saving my family some $ as we are not going to pursue a new policy and let the old policy run out. The insurance companies pencils are definately sharper than ours. :tiphat:

 

[Jogeephus]

Sky, I think you are making the right choice but if a hurricane demolishes your place the day your policy runs out don't blame me.

I think the general consensus is the insurance companies need to lower the rates considerably before its truly worth while to the average timber farmer. Like Greybeard said, the average person only makes $50/acre/year on trees and when you are paying the government 20% of this so you can have the privilege of owning land and have them tell you what you can and cannot do with it, it doesn't make much sense to give the insurance company another 24% of your yearly theoretical return because that adds up fast and I think if you were to amortize these payments forward to the day you actually get a check from the timber then you would be sick. Then in the end, you have to pay the government again 3 times in Georgia when you cut it. He77, buggers the mind as to why you planted the trees in the first place when everyone else is getting money from them but you.

 

[skyhightree1]

Sky, I think you are making the right choice but if a hurricane demolishes your place the day your policy runs out don't blame me.

I think the general consensus is the insurance companies need to lower the rates considerably before its truly worth while to the average timber farmer. Like Greybeard said, the average person only makes $50/acre/year on trees and when you are paying the government 20% of this so you can have the privilege of owning land and have them tell you what you can and cannot do with it, it doesn't make much sense to give the insurance company another 24% of your yearly theoretical return because that adds up fast and I think if you were to amortize these payments forward to the day you actually get a check from the timber then you would be sick. Then in the end, you have to pay the government again 3 times in Georgia when you cut it. He77, buggers the mind as to why you planted the trees in the first place when everyone else is getting money from them but you.

LOL Jo I will send you a bill if they are damaged. My grandmother replanted a nice tract for my kids. I had nothing to do with it my land I cut is still that nothing has been done but clearing about 10 acres in total.

 

[Nesikep]

The ponderosa's around here got a serious culling from the pine beetle about 4-5 years ago, seems to have ebbed out now, still the occasional one dies but 5 years ago it was really ugly.. The bush is really bad now that they're all falling criss cross everywhere. In about a 1/2 acre patch I cut down about 50 trees and burnt them.. they still had the dead needles on them, the smoke was black like a locomotive's from all the oil in the needles.. darned hot too

There were some lower altitude clearcuts around here and they've had to be replanted about 3 times, 7-10" of rain a year and 100F just isn't going to cut it for them.. Higher elevations had much better success rate with a bit better moisture and less heat.

 

[Jogeephus]

Elevation does make a difference. Nesikep, a long time ago just for shyts and giggles I planted some ponderosa pine, douglas fir and even a few redwood seedlings here in Georgia. Talk about some confused trees. :lol2: And as you would know, they didn't do well.

 

[greybeard]

From the other side of the coin, what works best to kill loblolly/southern yellow pine seedlings 6"-2ft in height?
(Remedy/2,4d will not)

 

[Jogeephus]

Remedy should kill them. If you are just getting a little browning and they don't die my guess is you are not using enough water. I use a minimum of 20 gallons -sometimes 40 gallons - to acre to insure good coverage. You want it just to the point of runoff. Other than that, barring a poor surfactant I haven't a clue.

 

[greybeard]

They turn brown, needles fall off, leaving just the "stem" but they regrow needles a few months later. They are mostly on fencelines that I wand spray so it's difficult to gauge the application rate/acre. 1 qt remedy +1 qt 2,4d and 1.5 pints 80-20 surfactant to 100 gals of water and I soak 'em down good with the wand.
Got the same problem with the cedars (Eastern red cedar--(Juniperus virginiana) that have begun sprouting up all over. We don't have the ashe juniper/mountain cedar that is all over central Texas.

 

[Jogeephus]

That's odd. Just a thought, why not omit the 2,4-d and replace with same amount of remedy. I was dealing with some really hard to kill stuff once and one of the chemical people told me not to use the 2,4-D because it was too quick a burn and it didn't allow the herbicide to actually kill the plant. I've seen pine saplings sprayed with remedy/garlon and it killed them dead.

 

[cowgirl8]

We have around 600 acres of trees that are 25 to 15 yrs old. When we bought the place we are on, there was a CRP deal for pines and 40 dollars an acre for 10 years thanks to the best president ever Ronald Reagan. The land cost us 260 an acre...Anywho, we've gone through fires, ice storms and droughts. Those pines are tough. The fire was caused by a careless neighbor and his home owners insurance paid damages. It was one colossal fire. But it was contained to a 80 acres lost.
Last year my husband bought out a guy who had a logging company. So now we dont have to rely on loggers. My husband and son will finish the cutting which some will be saw timber, some are a few thinning away from saw timber.
FYI, make sure you have other pines around you. Getting someone in there to thin the trees will be impossible unless there are a lot of trees to make it worth their while to move all their equipment. We've got a guy near us who just planted like 50 acres. Everything else around here that's in pines are way older and will be gone by the time his are ready to thin. So, he may have trouble getting anyone interested in harvesting.
We went to a seminar for carbon credits, sounded like a lot of hogwash to me. But then again, i went for the free food...lol

 

[skyhightree1]

this is where we lost our pines

http://vafirenews.wordpress.com/2008/02 ... wildfires/

Rain, snow snuff out last of wildfires
February 15, 2008
The Progress-Index – Rain, snow snuff out last of wildfires
DNIWIDDIE — The fires that had ravaged the county since Sunday are finally out, fire officials said Thursday. The largest, in the area of Old Stage Road, roasted about 2,850 acres, the Virginia Department of Forestry estimated. Dinwiddie's all-volunteer firefighters also started a well-deserved rest following a week battling the biggest fire in recent memory.

"It's out," said Ed Zimmer, regional forester for the Department of Forestry. "The rain and snow essentially put it out."

 

[cowgirl8]

The ice storm we had in Feb did a lot of damage. These are the 25 yr old pines, snapped them like they were nothing. Luckily, since we now have logging equipment, my guys will go in there and harvest the damaged trees for pulp wood.

I went out on the porch while the ice was forming and it sounded like shotgun blast in the pines. When i first heard it i thought, who's out there hunting....then i remembered the ice storm of 2001 and what the trees sounded like. It was pretty sad..

 

[skyhightree1]

I grew up in a logging/farming family I gotta say I do not miss that logging one bit lol... When we have our trees harvested we get chipped done as well what sucks in logging is you gotta cut whats in demand and if what you have at hand the mills don't want you will truly know the meaning of feast or famine. I had a ton of pics of our trees that were burnt but that was about 10 cell phones ago and the one they were on was broken and didnt have a sd card which sucks.

 

[Jogeephus]

Here is a picture of a stand torched by an arsonist a few years ago. He had been arrested several times in the past and they only slapped his hand and gave him a paltry fine. In all total he burned $750,000 worth of timber. We were able to salvage some but much of it was toast. Good thing is a friend caught him in the act and the law came down on him really hard this time. After the DA worked out a plea deal rather than a jury trial which by the way allowed the state not to have to pay my friend the reward for catching an arsonist, he pays $5/month restitution and was released after serving six whole months in a corrections facility. He was also banned from ever coming back into the county but he moved into the next county upon release and within two weeks of his release a rash of unexplained arsons occurred. These are still unsolved.



Here's the remains of a turtle. Complete ash.