what is the best way to obtain timber prices?

[madstone]

I am a firewood provider and often times run into a lot of landowners who have decent Timber but cannot .get anyone to harvest cause of small quantities of product. I'm not looking to get rich but just thought that one could do alright if he harvested by himself the small tracts. They are quite a few places to sell product to outside the 3 area sawmills. We have a paper plant that accepts pulpwood and chips and another biomass plant to take pine chips. Plus were in the process of opening a .wood pellet plant that is going to.want quite of bit of product. Lately if the loggers cannot at least get a full truck load ( 10 cords or better ) they won't even bother to look at your tract and they leave harvested timber stacked in the woods to rot cause they don't have a full truck load to come back to. My question is how can I obtain current stumpage and delivered price for Timber so I can give the landowner a fair deal while also .trying to not screw myself. Thanks again this website is awesome. Wish i would of found it a long time ago. My fiance says I'm addicted to it. Oh well there alot .worse s#*$ to be addicted to.

 

[kkottemann]

in the end if you haul the product yourself you are going to get paid by the ton, that is your delivered price. A percentage agreed upon between you and the land owner will be the stumpage you pay them. just call the mill's procurement manager and see what they are paying for whatever product you are hauling. figure out what your logging cost will be, Pull a per ton price that puts a profit in your wallet and pay the rest to the landowner. They will either accept or tell you to get lost.....thats forestry.....a very underrated game of math and statistics!!!! good luck.

 

[forestryworks]

you can call a logger, a mill, or a forester.

 

[380LGR]

I dont know anybody who would cut a job with less than 3-4 loads of logs on it. You cant afford to move equipment on a job and lose a couple of days doing the move.

 

[madhatte]

Madstone, I'm working on the same problem. Every day I find logs that could be used for various products which never get harvested because they're not included in the sale cycle. There has got to be a way to find buyers for individual logs. The area where I live has a thriving community of wildcrafters and specialty woodworkers who are clamoring for quality product and no way to find it affordably. If I can find a way to put specialty logs in the hands of the end-users who are looking for them, I'll have a pretty interesting prospect for supplementary timber sale income. Administratively, though, it's tough; logistically, it's tougher. As noted above, it is very hard to make it profitable to move machinery around to snatch up stray logs. However, a guy with a knuckle boom and a car-hauler trailer might just be able to make it work. I'll post here if I have any major breakthroughs.

 

[madstone]

I think this spring I'm gonna try it with a 4 wheel drive tractor and a equipment trailer. Most of these tracts Im alread there cutting firewood so it would just be a matter of transporting to the mill. I'm gonna give it a shot. Cause if it works ill have a little diffrent niche of the market. If it doesn't its not like I have a ton of money into it like guys that are doing thus for a living . Plus I really don't want anything to do with large scale harvesting.

 

[lwmibc]

Can you find a log sorting yard in your area? They usually are connected with a log broker; that would be the guy you need to meet and talk price. It's common that mills buy logs from log brokers, log brokers buy them from either people holding a TFL or logging companies that bid on government (we call it 'crown' because we never beat up on the British) timber sales. Bet a short visit to your district forester would give some answers too.

Unless of course you don't want them to know anything about it.....