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You sold pine for $2760 per acre?

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My first thought  

Must have been 40+ year old stand in good dirt that has been managed/thinned correctly for maximum growth.

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What species of pine do y'all grow in AR?  AFC shows Loblolly and Shortleaf on its website as seedlings that are available to purchase for planting.  .  That's a LOT of money for loblolly or shortleaf.  

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Shortleaf and loblolly.

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Its a good thing you didn't have the woodpeckers.

Wait, you checked for the woodpeckers didn't ya?    

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This is bad advice. You never, ever, put the logged in control over what gets cut and how it gets merchandised.  And, selective timber cutting usually results in decline of the long term productivity of the stand.

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This is bad advice. You never, ever, put the logged in control over what gets cut and how it gets merchandised.  And, selective timber cutting usually results in decline of the long term productivity of the stand.

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Not bad advice if you want to continue to hunt it for the next forty years, and not have a clear cut patch of land.   Plus you open up the canopy to allow other trees to grow.   Never said to put the logger in control.   That is how you get a mess, with everything harvested, and none of the tree tops cleared and just left to lay where they fell.

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Yes.  It had never been cut.  Bids are copy and pasted below.



± 74.8 ACRES –Miller County, AR

Bidder Amount

Domtar $206,310.50

JW Miller Timber Co. $187,375.00

Ray Rogers Timber $171,800.00

Bayou State Timber Service, Inc. $153,614.00

Weyerhaeuser $145,856.65

Watson Wood Co. $143,625.00

Ward Timber, LTD. $135,050.00

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It's incredibly bad advice.    



Look, not going to get into a purse swinging over this.  I have better things to do.  But, you said "you would want to hire a logger that specializes in veneer quality lumber", that's giving the logger defacto control over the timber harvest.  Landowners have no business hiring loggers.  They don't know what a good logging rate is, or even how logs are scaled.  It's an open invitation for a gaping asshole.





*I* don't even make a habit of hiring a logger, unless the land is so rough that it is questionable as to how much they can actually log. It removes uncertainty from the buyer who might lose a ton of money should he purchase it lump sum.  The only other time I hire  loggers is if timber harvesting is just a buy product of a primary goal.





Timber should be sold on a lump sum, sealed bid basis.





Now, about selective timber harvesting. The desirable species in the eastern, deciduous forest, are mostly, what we call, shade intolerant species, or at least intermediate.  Bottom line, is these trees need sunlight to grow. Yellow poplar, ash, walnut, red oak, white oak are all shade intolerant to shade intermediate species.





So, back to my original comment about selective cutting resulting in long term decline in productivity.  Lets say you go through and cut out just the best.  Well, for starters, you're going to get less money for the logs from the get go because it's going to cost more to log them.  Since you're cutting less volume per acre, the economy of scale shrinks so you must pay more than you other wise would.  Second, you also have to pay the logger more to cut down his productivity to ensure he doesn't destroy the residual stand (this is assuming you know what you're doing with negotiating of logging rates, which landowners don't).  



But now, after paying more to cut less, you now have a stand of timber in which the very best trees are now gone.  So what is left?  What you have left are similar species to what was cut, only they were of inferior genetic quality and did not produce a desirable phenotype that would result in grade logs, or, they aren't able to achieve the same growth rate that the harvested trees displayed.  But that's not all.  You still have all of the junk species, such as basswood, red maple, black gum, sassafras, buckeye, sourwood, beech, and even worse still, redbud and witch hazel.  All of those species are shade tolerant.  They love shade and grow well in it.  Since you've removed just the high quality stuff, only a fraction of the amount of light necessary for regeneration reaches the forest floor.  You're not getting back oak, you're regenerating the stuff that you left behind.





So you come back in 15 years, and what do you have left?  Lots of desirable species that are of poor form and poor grade, and trees that only have pulpwood value, or marginally more. If you're pigheaded, and you selectively harvest just the best trees, you will end up with a stand that has zero desirable species and nothing but undesirable, shade tolerant vegetation that no one will be willing to harvest, unless the land is flat and they can grind it up for fuel chips.





This is what happens every time someone does a "lets just go harvest the best trees".  I've seen property after property full of absolute shit because this is what has happened for decade upon decade.





Now, there are alternatives.  A lot depends on how much land you have to work with, and your primary and secondary objectives.





If you have enough land, you can do what's called a group selection. Lets say you have 100 acres.  You like the woods and don't want it all cut.  So we instead cut half of it in patches ranging from 15-20 acres per patch.  We clear cut it to encourage the regeneration of shade intolerant species. Or, of money really is an issue, we can leave uncut, wildlife corridors; strips or bands of uncut forest 100-150 feet wide along obvious deer traveling places like drains and ridgelines.





Since oak is a shade intermediate species, we can do a shelterwood harvest.  Pick out and mark 8-13 trees per acre OF THE BEST trees and cut all the rest. This results in the best trees being left, with enough openings to allow for proper regeneration.  Once the regeneration has been established, over the course of 6-10 years, you go back and cut down the remaining trees. The draw back is that you get less money but you at least ensure that your stand won't be comprised with junk on down the line.  



Finally, I don't know of any logger who clears tree tops.  If there is a market for pulpwood, most of that will get pulled.  If the land is conducive to fully mechanized timber harvesting, then it will likely get chipped, or at least well utilized for pulpwood.  If it's steep, where skidding is done via cabling then those tops are going to get left, and that's a good thing as those tops help prevent erosion, provide wildlife habitat, and function as slow release fertilizer for the new stand as it rots away.

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You sold pine for $2760 per acre?

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Har.



OP, it all depends on what's on the land.  Somew timber is worth $300/acre, some is worth $10k/acre.  Some might have negative value.



But, all things being equal, the market value of the dirt is usually higher if there's timber on it (i.e. the raw land value, not including the value of the timber).



The days of buying land, cutting the timber, and paying for the land disappeared about 30 years ago.

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I've never seen it.  Now, you have to seek permission from the mortgage company/lein holder before you sell the timber as you are devaluing the asset that serves as collateral on a loan, but, typically, a mortgage company will grant it's permission in a formal release under the stipulation that the timber sells for at least $x amount and may also force the timber seller to apply proceedes to the principle owed on the property.

In 20 years, the only time I've seen a landowner told "no" was from someone who was doing owner financing.

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Thank you for your wealth of knowledge. One question; can someone re-plant a timbered area with desirable species rather than let nature take its course?  

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Have I mentioned the time I saw a deed for a parcel someone bought and the previous owner had retained timber rights from now until eternity?

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That's not what I would call a bidding war.  Those results, on a desirable boundary of timber, are typical in the business.

You always have the high bid that nearly doubles that of the low bid, and a bunch of bids, grouped tightly together that form, what I call, the fair market value of the timber for the purposes of evaluating and appraising the resource.


Ward Timber was a courtesy bid,  Bayou bid probably about what it was forth, JW wanted the tract and willing to pay more, but not that much more and Domtar needed to buy it.

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Yes.  It had never been cut.  Bids are copy and pasted below.

± 74.8 ACRES –Miller County, AR
Bidder Amount
Domtar $206,310.50
JW Miller Timber Co. $187,375.00
Ray Rogers Timber $171,800.00
Bayou State Timber Service, Inc. $153,614.00
Weyerhaeuser $145,856.65
Watson Wood Co. $143,625.00
Ward Timber, LTD. $135,050.00

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Turning timber land into pasture is very expensive. I always hated when people wanted me to give them a price on removing stumps and leveling the ground after timber has been harvested. It usually crushed their dreams. It is even worse for the ones who purchased land after someone else cut the timber.

Digging stumps is a slow, tedious, expensive process and hard on equipment. It will often cost more per acre than the purchase price plus value of timber sold. Of course it depends on size, species, and density of trees.  

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I'd say your proximity to Ashdown Arkansas helped with your Domtar bid.

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Two acres is hardly worth messing with.