KNOWLEDGE WORKERS OF THE SE FOREST ECONOMY ANSWER IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW TO MAKE TIMBERLAND INVESTING PROFITABLE
These persons include every kind of knowledge worker you can think of: sawmill CEO, logger, state and federal forester, lawyer, real estate agent, CPA, graduate student, wildlife manager, extension service agent, silvicultural contractor, consulting forester, research scientist, and more timberland investors than all the others put together. In their daily routines, each learns valuable facts about the business of making money growing trees, and as we have seen in these pages recently, we profit when we read their comments.
To increase the amount of this, we have listed below a set of questions. We hope that you will pretend that we are directing them to you personally and will e-mail us your answer to those that you know the most about. We’ll post them under the questions below and, if you give us permission, quote you as author. By this means we will create a unique permanent reference book.
Here are the questions and an illustration of the process under Question #4:
#1. When I want to sell my timber for a lump-sum in advance, how can I make it most attractive to you?
#2. When I want to sell my timberland, either investment or recreational, how can I make it most attractive to buyers?
#3. Can we use fertilizer to speed up growth enough to produce more valuable DBH classes early?
#4. Is wood from fast-growing trees unsuitable for
pulpwood or OSB or CNS?
Dr. David South, Professor of Forestry, Auburn University, as follows:
"NO for pulpwood, NO for OSB, NO for CNS. Megraw (1985- Wood quality facors in loblolly pine) said, 'An inherent relationship between growth rate and specific gravity does not exist. Fast growth does not imply lower specific gravity.' Bruce Zobel (1970-Tappi 53(12):2320-2325) said, 'Relationships between growth rates and wood specific gravity are non-existent, either by families or individuals within families..' Cown et al. (1991- Radiata Pine Wood Properties Survey. FRI Bulletin #50) said, 'Tree age, not tree growth, is the key determining factor for wood density at all sites.' Peter Koch (1972- Utilization of the Southern Pines) said, '…growth rate of plantation trees, when manipulated by changing environmental or silvicultural conditions, may not be closely correlated with wood specific gravity.' Craig, Dougherty and Hennessey (1988- CJFR 18:18-851-858) said, 'The results of this study concur with the preponderance of evidence that faster growth rates promoted by thinning do not necessarily lead to less dense, weaker wood (Megraw 1985)."
#5. Has genetic improvement reduced the number of planted pine seedlings that develop into crooked or forked trees? Is any reduction of the number of them likely in the future? Are increases of growth rates likely in the future?
#6. Even when a plantation of 400 trees per acre is thinned to only 175 of the best-quality trees per acre, logging costs are high in a selective (non-row) thinning because logging machines are very large and hard to maneuver between the remaining trees. In a typical stand, what stumpage per ton could you pay in a selective cut? What could you pay in the same stand if you were allowed to clearcut it?
#7. In clearcutting a typical plantation with 400 trees per-acre ranging from 5-7 inches DBH, what stumpage per ton could you pay? What could you pay if DBH ranged from 7-9 inches?
#8. Can some of the raw material used by OSB and composite panel plants eventually be suitable for Chip-N-Saw (CNS) products? If so, how much more must the CNS buyer pay to get landowners to postpone sales until the trees are large enough for him?
#9. If we measure an adequate sample of trees in an ordinary plantation, is PTAEDA2V (Vardaman's growth & yield model) accurate in predicting growth from one year to the next? If not, is any model adequate?
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