Anyone planting trees for future timber value (walnut/oak)?
- Thread starter bwoods11
- Start date
tynimiller
5 year old buck +
Nope not personally....I mean I could see maybe shoving a few in the utmost Northern edge of my property as to not take any canopy cover but I personally think wildlife 100% driven primarily deer. Walnuts just simply aren't good for the soil and just more use to me logged out or removed.
Now I am planning to put a few long term growth oaks in around some plots and on North side of fruit tree plot with long term harvest in the back of my mind.
Now I am planning to put a few long term growth oaks in around some plots and on North side of fruit tree plot with long term harvest in the back of my mind.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
We have a 15 acre piece in the middle of our farm that was planted to hardwoods - walnut, oaks, and ash. 5,000 trees were planted 25 years ago when I was in 7th grade. I got to skip school to help. Probably less than half remain. The oaks are all gone and the ash are in various stages of death. Some of the walnuts are very nice. The lower the ground, the bigger they are. I had a thread going on the evil forum about how I tried putting 1,200 various shrubs throughout the walnuts to add some cover and diversity.
Here's a 2 year old article about the desire of black walnut lumber:
http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/everyone-wants-midwest-walnut-20141202
Here's a 2 year old article about the desire of black walnut lumber:
http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/everyone-wants-midwest-walnut-20141202
M
MoBuckChaser
Guest
I have a bunch of Walnut on several farms. Most are $100-$200 trees at best, even though some are in the 20-24" range, with some hard to get trees at 48" inside the bark. It takes a special tree to give a perfect 8'6" log that is worth good money!
M
MoBuckChaser
Guest
I have a farm for sale with them on it you can go look yourself if you want. But if I get over there I will snap a picture. But those 48" trees ain't what you are thinking. They are gunstock walnut trees. They have huge branches growing out of them starting at 4' high. You could not get a good log out of them if you wanted to.
j-bird
Moderator
I have never done it. I have a neighbor that is a timber man and he bought a poor row crop farm next to us and row planted the entire thing to mostly oaks. This made great wildlife cover from years 5 to 10, but now they are crowding and developing a low canopy so the ground level cover is poor. The trees have done really well and I am surprised at how much some of them have grown in say 15 years. My grandfather also planted a grove of walnuts decades ago. To be honest it's time for them to be thinned, but because grandpa planted them nobody has the stones to cut them since he has since passed. Some have terrible form and others simply are not keeping up. I have been told that for the most part hardwood timber is grown best in two ways. Simply let mother nature do her thing naturally - she will let trees thrive where they are best suited. You simply have to monitor the process. The other is to essentially start with a crop field or a clear cut then plant what is best suited for the site. You will have to follow up with thinning at some point, but the competition between them all will drive the trees to reach skyward.
I will say the large row plantation of the neighbors is sort of odd looking. All the trees are in long rows and just simply isn't natural. One thing they did do was they planted a double row of pines around the entire perimeter of the plantations. I assume to reduce the wind stress on the younger trees. Most of what they planted where burr oaks. They planted seedlings with a tow behind tree planter.
I will say the large row plantation of the neighbors is sort of odd looking. All the trees are in long rows and just simply isn't natural. One thing they did do was they planted a double row of pines around the entire perimeter of the plantations. I assume to reduce the wind stress on the younger trees. Most of what they planted where burr oaks. They planted seedlings with a tow behind tree planter.
bwoods11
5 year old buck +
Good article, Iowa soils can grow some nice walnut. I would set aside a couple of acres down in IA, if I lived there, probably do walnut and white oak of some kind. Minnesota trees grow much slower due to climate.
I would guess I have $20,000 worth of walnut growing in the timber now, but I think I'll just wait for them to mature more. Former owner did TSI to open up around the walnut, oak and some black cherry.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
Personally I think boards and gunstocks are the most noble cause for a giant tree anyway. But yes, I assumed your monsters had low limbs, just as our creek bottom ones do. I was just impressed by the shear size. That would make some awesome live-edge table tops!
M
MoBuckChaser
Guest
Roger that!
I met a logger at that farm last week, he is putting together a price for all the Walnut, cottonwood and soft maple on that farm. If he cuts those large walnuts, he will use all of the main tree trunk on up. He has a place to sell all those pieces. So I am curious to see what he is willing to pay for those old trees!
But the trees on that farm that are worth the most he said are the Osage Orange trees. The need for fence posts is so high it has driven the price through the roof on them. With one large corner post bringing as must as $40-$50 each! So we are getting a inventory on those trees as well!
Maybe a guy should be thinking of growing those for the future!
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
You don't say. We have some dandies of those growing too. Still have a few stacks of hedge posts lying around. When we sold a farm a few years ago, as the deal was going down, had guys stopping to ask about pulling our hedge posts out of the ground. Seems like more work than I'd be willing to do. My dad laughs when he talks about how grandpa used to frown when guys would bring him hedge that made 2 angles going 2 different ways and wanted them cut for fencing. One angle was ok but not 2.
Good luck on your bids. Those big slabs go for a fortune if you gotta buy them from the sawmill guys or the furniture maker!
Good luck on your bids. Those big slabs go for a fortune if you gotta buy them from the sawmill guys or the furniture maker!
M
MoBuckChaser
Guest
They want fresh cut hedge to nail into. After one year of laying around, you can hardly drill the damn things to get a staple in!
bwoods11
5 year old buck +
Mo--I bet you will be surprised at the value of those cottonwoods as well. Most think they are worthless, they are often so big (so many board feet) that they are worth some money. I know a guy in MN that took out several hundred and made some decent money. Pallet wood, I think??
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
I talked with a forester about planting trees for timber harvest several yrs ago. Internet research said 20-30yrs to get timber sized walnut, forester said more like 60yrs min. He said pecans were the way to go because you'll make much more with yearly nut sales over the next several decades than with a timber harvest.
I'm already planting hedge for money purposes. Didn't know others were doing it but it just made sense for me. I build fence on the place, I burn wood to heat my house... other people do those things too so why not start my own plot of them. They grow very fast and are damn near impossible to kill. Doesn't hurt that deer love the leafs and browse from them.
I'm already planting hedge for money purposes. Didn't know others were doing it but it just made sense for me. I build fence on the place, I burn wood to heat my house... other people do those things too so why not start my own plot of them. They grow very fast and are damn near impossible to kill. Doesn't hurt that deer love the leafs and browse from them.
bueller
Moderator
My wife's uncle told me about a large black walnut tree that he had growing in his residential yard that he wanted removed. Tree service quoted him $3,000 to cut it down and remove all the wood. In the end the guy agreed to cut the tree down for free as long as he could keep the wood. Supposedly the tree service shipped the logs to a buyer in Iowa who then sells them overseas. I wonder how much over $3,000 the tree service guy cleared.
tynimiller
5 year old buck +
When you guys are saying Hedge...I'm assuming you are talking Hedge Apple or Osage right?
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
Yes.
Hedge, Hedge Apple, Osage Orange, etc.
tynimiller
5 year old buck +
Okay good deal, do any of you recommend or had good experience with a trusted source in the Indiana or surrounding state area? I want to incorporate a few plantings of it.
wiscwhip
5 year old buck +
Many times they won't even consider a residential tree as most of them have years of nails, embedded fencing wire and other such defects in them and no way to verify that without actually having expensive testing(x-ray or magnetic) done on the tree, many do not consider them to be "safe" for the feller, and especially the sawmill, for these reasons. Some mills won't even take residential trees. Rolling the dice on a potential $3,000 log is not worth the cost of ruining $10,000 worth of blades at the mill.
