How bad is it?

[Ron Wenrich]

The past few weeks have been pretty bad for hardwood markets here in the east.  We've seen buyers who have pulled graders off the road and have shut off buying in some species.  Prices have pulled back and grading has gotten stiffer.

Veneer buyers have started to not take certain species.  Black oak and ash are getting difficult to move.

Now we are starting to see mills close their doors.  I believe this will pick up as they cut off their purchased timber.  Auctions are getting more numerous.  High debt load will crush some of these mills.

Any market that has a crack in it is filled rapidly.  We had one buyer crying for 8/4 hard maple.  One month later he is getting 5 trailerloads a day.

Even tie buyers have dropped back in pricing.  More ties, lower price.

Meanwhile, stumpage prices haven't dropped, putting a further squeeze on the mills.

Lumber buyers are citing large sawn inventories at the mill level.  Best guess projections are this problem will continue until after the summer.  Softwood prices have yet to make an upturn.

You guys seeing the same things in your marketplace?

[Jeff]

We put both mills in hard maple last week to try and liquidate our logs because the news was the price was dropping daily. We had several thousand feet of basswood that could have been veneer that we had to almost beg them to take with the maple. Our logging crew is going into a black oak job because right now we can sell some blocking in detroit.

The only thing that seems to be holding right now is our grade aspen market. No cuts there yet. At least for us.

[Gordon]

Those trends are not looking good. Within ten miles of my house there are 5 sawmills. Four are Amish owned and all of them the yards are FULL. So that is not good.

Here is the worst, I arranged an order with one mill and he backed out. Said unless I could cut my price by a large amount he was not interested at this time. Why---his yard was FULL and he has had a few large buyers of hardwood back out from him.

This is not a good trend. Needless to say the trees can grow another year for that price. Make more off of firewood right now in this area.

Gordon

[L. Wakefield]

   Absolutely.Leave them growing, diversify into things (like firewood) that may become more important in a lot of ways. Limit your debt, protect your inventory- and I always like to be growing something I can eat, just for when times get hard. (No, I am not suggesting you learn to eat wood- tho all you'd neeed is a little- a trivial- genetic engineering- one enzyme- and you could do it. The glucose is there. We just can't break the cellulose linkage. You could be sitting on a HELL of a lot of food there..)