VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

THE COMING BOOM IN VALUES OF LOBLOLLY PINE PLANTATIONS

In September 2000 Jim Vardaman attended the annual meeting of the Loblolly Pine Growth and Yield Research Cooperative, a joint affair this year with its western counterpart, the Stand Management Cooperative.  Seventy scientists, industrialists, and investors, the world’s leading experts on the coniferous species of the U. S., worked from breakfast until bedtime for three days.  The message in all presentations and private conversations astonished him.  It revealed that the wealthy urban residents of Seattle and Tacoma have taken control of forest management activities in the huge Douglas fir stands of Washington.  The state’s Forest Practices Act, which applies to all landowners, has grown from a booklet 1/8-inch thick not long ago to a book 1 1/8-inch thick when printed in eight-point type.  The simplest changes in forested lands, actions that SE U.S. landowners regard as basic prerogatives, require approval of state foresters.  With few exceptions, esthetics, the appearance of the land afterwards, must be pleasing to the eyes of Washington’s voters.  The predominant, almost exclusive, theme of the meeting was how to solve the enormous problems created by this one-sided use.

Think about what such a situation would do to you.  The cost of compliance would go through the roof and be deducted from your timber-sale receipts.  And how would you ever resolve a dispute about whether the result would be beautiful?

Meeting participants spent many hours driving from one management demonstration to another, and the scenery everywhere inspired awe in an old man accustomed to working in southern pines.  It would be glorious if we could have that and fast-growing loblolly too.  But persons who control use of trees can’t have both.  They must either let them stand and be admired or be cut and converted into thousands of useful, essential products.  If the citizens of Washington dedicate use of these enormous assets solely to provide beautiful scenery, persons with the basic needs of modern living must satisfy them elsewhere.  No forests can do this better than PPIC’sâ and other timberlands in SE U.S.  As one owner of these, JMV&CO welcomes the new customers sent to us by the citizens of Washington.

Two other advances have made our job easier.  The staff at Virginia Tech reported that all growth-and-yield programs produced by the co-op are essentially complete and producing accurate predictions for users.  The Windows version of PTAEDA2V is especially easy to use.  These programs, price reports from www.vardaman.com, and digital camera reports of professional foresters supply all required data for managers.  Investors and lending agencies anywhere can essentially inspect their trees on the ground and evaluate them independently with ease and accuracy.

Fractionation of interests in timberland was developed by Pine Plantation Management Company in 1997-98 and has proven successful.  Allocating the productive capacity of the dirt into a separate fraction allows employment of all capital in trees.  Because of this efficiency, tree specialists, even while increasing the income of landowners, earn much higher returns.  We cannot increase the land area of a tract, but we can quickly incorporate into our management systems all new discoveries in genetics, fertilization, marketing, etc.  This investment medium is in the New Economy because it is nothing but timber; there is no land, no annual taxes, no access problems, no vacant space, and no government rules about water quality or disturbing wetlands.  And we have a powerful ally, the landowner, in warding off undesirable regulations.

The coming boom will be biggest and most stable for a pure-timber medium in the New Economy.  It will be smaller and less stable for a land-and-timber medium in the Old Economy.  Come join the boom.  You will even learn to love our kind of beauty as displayed at http://www.vardaman.com/greensheets/beauty.htm.