Daydreamer
5 year old buck +
What's the age of a mature/ready to harvest walnut tree? Any idea?
Black Walnut Wildlife Value
- Thread starter bigboreblr
- Start date
Daydreamer
5 year old buck +
FarmerDan
5 year old buck +
Yep! I was going to say 35 to 70 years. Anything growing is subject to some kind of constraint. Too much or too little of something. I had a relative in Pennsylvania plant 15 acres of black walnut when he was in his mid 20's. He died 50 years later before a tree was harvested. A couple blew over several years ago. I'd guess the sellable trunk was 50 ft long and maybe 20-inch small end diameter. I could hardly give away those couple of trees. Eventually a local guy gave $100 each for a couple. I get it. There were no sophisticated millers and/or marketers there...and we were only dealing with a couple trees.
This is what I know today. Not much! On the stump black walnut is selling for $1 to $10 a board foot. Oh, there's an exceptional veneer log out there somewhere that will bring big money...but only because it's exceptional in quality and yield. A 30-foot log, 16-inches in diameter at the narrow end will yield about 270 board feet.
What you can get for it? Lots of time the math just doesn't work out....
I planted a row of walnuts in 1999 in my parent's yard in SE MN on excellent soil. Some of those trees are now around 9-12" diameter at chest height. They are fast growing trees once established, but deer love to browse new growth and rub on the trunks.
b116757
5 year old buck +
Probably closer to 80 years or more unless it’s prime walnut location and conditions. Deep sight index bottom ground with regular canopy release over the decades. My new farm I bought a couple years ago has about 40 trees large enough to be marketable now and we usually pull a semi load or two of logs off the other farm about every 10 years or so. I’d guess those 40 trees are worth $2000-$2500 each.
Foggy47
5 year old buck +
I think the real high value trees are few and far between. But once in a while a buyer stumbles into a great stand of old timber. Few knew the value of those old growth walnut logs back then and local interest was more about firewood and some hardwood saw timbers. That is what happened before any logging was done in the Minnesota River valley. Nobody had previously sold any timber except to some small saw mill operations. Nobody had any knowledge of the timber markets....let alone overseas buyers. I know that the guy I speak of had numerous foreign timber buyers stay at his home and he wined and dined them. He was a neighbor to me. I suppose the buyers inspected the high priced logs they were buying. This may have been in the late 70's or so.
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
The marketing is an important aspect. A buddy of my dad is in the industry. He has put flooring in Oprah Winfrey and Elton John’s homes. A huge market right now is in exotic stuff. Big money to be made in burl and gnarled stumps. There is a ton of money to be had in value added of the product. The value just isn’t there to the land owner unless they are going to go through all of the work of turning it into something and actually being able to market it.
Slower growing timber on north and east facing slopes is where the market is. Faster growing stuff just isn’t worth all that much even if it is walnut. If you plant it, Plant it in dense stands, thin it every so many years, and convince your heirs to have the discipline to leave it. To your great grand children, not your children and there will be money to be had for them.
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Slower growing timber on north and east facing slopes is where the market is. Faster growing stuff just isn’t worth all that much even if it is walnut. If you plant it, Plant it in dense stands, thin it every so many years, and convince your heirs to have the discipline to leave it. To your great grand children, not your children and there will be money to be had for them.
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Mortenson
5 year old buck +
When I was young I helped my dad and grandpa plant a few acres of hardwoods - walnut, oak & ash. I always thought I'd see some of them harvested, but now the reality has set in that it'll be my kids rather. It is true that walnuts don't hold a lot of wildlife value other than for squirrels. But our spot with walnuts is still highly used by deer. It's filled in with weeds, grasses, goldenrod on the edges, an orchard on the edge, food plots on the edges, shrubs (mostly wild plum) in void areas where the ash have been dying, miscanthus blended in. The deer absolutely love that area (15 acres). Most of biggest bucks will be seen in there a few times throughout the fall. It is NOT a place to shelter deer when the pressure is on. As it is now, they won't dive into there for hiding. But, with the plums, MG, and cedars growing and filling in, it's getting better with time.
Popularity of walnut lumber ebbs and flows, but seems to stand the test of time. Everyone should find their own best uses of their land, but IMO gambling on some far longterm returns for kids/grandkids isn't a bad thing. My grandpa/dad fed cattle on ours. My dad and I put in the walnuts and maintained them. I put in the fruit orchards. Maybe my kids will dig the duck pond or put in the wine vineyards and hops, lol. As everyone knows, walnuts grow as weeds. I'm planning to tube some of those weeds and teach the kids how to prune them. Keep them interested.
I'm overdue to thin ours. I think I lost time on their maturity, but it probably helped the interior ones grow straight. I need to kill half of them. This one along the fence I saw today is probably 16" range. The ones which take the most wind have a slight lean. I'm guessing they'll never straighten up enough to make veneer, but who knows. Maybe the standards will lower someday, lol.
bigboreblr
5 year old buck +
Walnut mut be going for good money. That bowed up one in BWoods picture is being collected must be valuable. If it was any other wood, that would of been chopped into a 8 footer and the rest would be waste or sold as firewood.
I thought deer ate walnuts. Something is making them disappear quick when they hit the ground. Deer spend time on tat edge there is september.
Far as timber value, the ones that have fell were hollow or had 2 leaders. The line of trees borders the neighbors property. Would technically have the neighbors agree to log it and spllit the $$$. Been trying to keep the vines out of it without using chemicals. Got some Green Tordon RTU to use on them.
Might have to put a trail camera there. Behind my neighbors property is the old town dump. Tons of mature oaks in there and no-one is in there doing anything.
I thought deer ate walnuts. Something is making them disappear quick when they hit the ground. Deer spend time on tat edge there is september.
Far as timber value, the ones that have fell were hollow or had 2 leaders. The line of trees borders the neighbors property. Would technically have the neighbors agree to log it and spllit the $$$. Been trying to keep the vines out of it without using chemicals. Got some Green Tordon RTU to use on them.
Might have to put a trail camera there. Behind my neighbors property is the old town dump. Tons of mature oaks in there and no-one is in there doing anything.
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
10-15? Years ago I was going to plant walnuts with the idea I might find some retirement income (hopeful) and for sure something the kids could benefit from. Researched some sort of fast growing hybrid out of Penn Stae (maybe, maybe somewhere else... it's been a decade). Thought I'd call a local forester just to confirm my plans before taking the commitment. He told me they don't make good money where I'm at and 80 -100 yrs was my absolute best investment time frame, not the 40-60yrs I'd been figuring on. He said Pecans were the money makers here. Said yearly nut sales while waiting for logs outpaced walnut investments 10 fold. I didn't do either.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
I have a lot of walnut mixed in both my woods. Both places were select logged around fifteen years ago so could be again in ten years or so if I wanted the hasslel and to have my woods tore up.
Wildlife value...squirrels like them, deer bed around tops left after logging.
I don't really care for them, messy trees...they have juglone poision in leaves/roots/nut husks, they pop up literally everywhere almost as bad as black locust, they spread out from edge of woods fast.
Cuts and splits good for firewood, love the look of the wood for gun stocks/paneling/floors/furniture/mantles.
Since I don't really care about logging...meh
Wildlife value...squirrels like them, deer bed around tops left after logging.
I don't really care for them, messy trees...they have juglone poision in leaves/roots/nut husks, they pop up literally everywhere almost as bad as black locust, they spread out from edge of woods fast.
Cuts and splits good for firewood, love the look of the wood for gun stocks/paneling/floors/furniture/mantles.
Since I don't really care about logging...meh
b116757
5 year old buck +
I do use it as firewood but most defiantly not my first choice or even second or third choice for that matter. It burns ok for me generally 1-2 years seasoned but does make more ash than any other wood I’ve burned so I don’t care for it in that regard. I have planted a few of the Purdue #1 improved walnuts on the farms to gain the superior genetics benifits but this is not something I will benefit from.
Brian662
5 year old buck +
Here are some pics I took today from above and below of the habitat available in my walnut Grove. Pretty mature overstory, but the juglone must be keeping the buckthorn and other mid story trees out of there. Entire area is probably 3 or 4 acres of hillside and creek bottom. The side cover you can see from the bottom view are briars. There is a few trails through the area but I only saw two beds.
My neighbor last year had his walnut cut. He ended up with $60,000. It looked like about a $1000 a tree. He said one brought $10,000. All of the trees were being shipped to China. He had some beautiful red oak that the buyer didn't even want. He gave him $75 a stick.
