Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Bobby G <bobbyg53211@yahoo.com>]

mtncats (Tom) wrote:

-What I've learned comes not from the internet, but
from both buying 
lumber for many years and sawing several thousand bd
ft of my own.  I 
approach my woodlot management from the perspective of
a woodshop.  How 
do I get the best value from any given tree?  Cut for
grade or figure?  
What board (thickness, width) gives the best return on
investment?

  Generally your choices are: 1) sell logs to
whichever mill pays best, 
or 2) add value to the logs by cutting and drying. 
The latter requires 
specific knowledge of your local lumber buyers and a
willingness to 
accommodate them.  Could be wholesale or retail.


Tom, i agree with your approach of trying to add value
to what's growing on the land you're managing.  it
seems that could be an approach common to whether
you're growing trees, or vegetables, or fruit.  

i agree the loggers pay very little to the landowners.
 but of course, from the loggers' perspective, that's
how they make their living.  around here in Wisc. i've
heard of ppl getting as little as $40 a cord from
loggers for a hardwood cutting.  

and a lot of loggers leave a serious mess in their
wake.  one way i've gotten firewood (to sell, or use
here at home) is by cutting the "tops" the loggers
have left.  one place i was cutting had well over a
hundred cord of wood *left* lying around after the
loggers.  and a lot of that was not "tops" but whole
logs that just didn't grade as nice lumber, so they
got left. 

considering that the dried firewood can be sold for
$180-200 a full cord (it's cheap around here) that's a
lot of value to leave lying around.

and when cut into boards, and kiln or air-dried, the
wood is worth considerably more than that!

i think the same math applies to activities like
processing some of the food you grow--whether by
drying, or canning, making preserves from fruit, or
baking, packing it for retail, that sort of thing. 
compared to "farming" as just selling grain by the
bushel as dry commodities, the economic yield per acre
is just off the charts, no comparison.

bobby g

 


 
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