Hybrid Poplar for Short Rotation Timber

[Tillaway]

There is quite a bit around here but I am still have not heard of anyone doing well with it unless it was grown under contract.  The folks that planted it for pulp speculatively so far have been stuck with a product that cost more to harvest and haul to the mill than its worth, that is until the last few months.  The ones that were planning on selling at the seven year mark for pulp have started pruning hoping to find a veneer market later.  Pulp prices have rebounded enough now to make harvest marginally profitable.  The first push into HP was when local pulp prices were something like $90 a ton.  Pulp prices were at $26 for the past 10 years or more. Pulp prices have just rebounded to the high $30's low $40's.  I looked at getting a contract to grow HP many years back from Boise-Cascade at $75 a Cu unit.  They were contracting growers for a short time until the pulp / paper market slowed down.

The universities are always big cheer leaders for this kind of thing.  There is still no market for HP veneer or saw logs that I know of.  In fact the only veneer mills that would peel cotton wood have quit buying them.  I had some nice cotton wood logs on a sale last summer and the sale purchaser could not find a buyer. 

[dsk]

John,

When I first found this forum I searched for Hybrid Poplar and read your posts about that poplar behind your garage (or whatever that building is). While I'm not positive of what the Penn State program was growing, I thought the leaves in those photos looked a lot like the OP-367 clones I have growing. OP-367 was a clone created at Oxford Paper, back in 1923, or there abouts. It's a cross between Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides) and Lombardy Poplar (Populus nigra).

Just going on what I'm reading about various Hybrid Poplar clones, it seems that every time Lombardy Poplar is entered into the mix, then the instance of cankers and leaf rust goes up. It could well be the case that the hybrids you have are a clone which includes P. nigra.

I did some looking into the Hybrid Poplar problems in southern Ontario, that SwampDonkey mentions above. And I found some things written about pulp plantations in the 1980s that met with bad results. They were using poplar crosses between P. Nigra and Populus Maximowiczii, often referred to as NM clones (NM-6 being one of the most common). It might just be coincidence, but there's that P. Nigra in the mix, again.

Since the 1980s a lot of new work has been done to select and cross clones for improved tolerance to canker and leaf rust. Some of the best results seem to result from crosses between Black Cottonwood and Eastern Cottonwood (P. Trichocarpa and P. Deltoides). I've chosen about 4 of those clones for my project, which have phenominal growth rates, and are reportedly very resistant to canker (and in varying degrees to rust).

On another post here in Forestry Forum, Ohsoloco mentioned that the Hybrid Poplar he millled "cut like butter". Let's hope you have a similar experience and I really look forward to hearing about your results next summer. If you want to kill that tree off and keep it from doing damage to that block wall, I've read that painting the stump with glysophate (Roundup) immediately after you cut it, will do the job.

And mentioning the 20 feet of new growth in the 18 months since that tree blew over, not surprising at all. Especially given the fact that a mature root system is pumping nutrients into that tree. Even newly planted cuttings have been known to grow 9 feet in their first year, as seen in this photo of cuttings grown in one gallon pots:
http://www.hybridpoplars.com/9ft.jpg

And if you're getting two inches of dbh growth per year, and this wood saws up into reasonably descent lumber, I don't know why any miller with a little patch of dirt wouldn't try planting a few of these things. Having a few extra board feet of timber to cut and use/sell for such little effort sounds like an easy decision to make.

Thanks
DSK

[Ron Wenrich]

Have you ever thought about paulownia?  Fast growing and a better market for the lumber/veneer than hybrid poplar.  I think you should be within the range, unless you're too high in elevation.

[Furby]

And if you're getting two inches of dbh growth per year, and this wood saws up into reasonably descent lumber, I don't know why any miller with a little patch of dirt wouldn't try planting a few of these things. Having a few extra board feet of timber to cut and use/sell for such little effort sounds like an easy decision to make.

Just to comment on this, fast grown trees may not produce very good or welcomed lumber.
Many, many years ago the lumber cut was very dense and growth rings very tight. Some very good lumber was produced and used for things we wouldn't think of using high quaility lumber for now days. As time has gone on, the lumber that is produced each year has dropped a little in quaility for one reason or another compared to what was cut 50, 100 or more years ago.
I look at all the post where folks talk about the poor quaility construction lumber at the box stores and such and a lot of times that lumber is from fast grown trees.
There is nothing wrong with trying to make things easier, faster, better.
Just because we can grow trees as fast as we can, doesn't mean that we should. At least not for lumber.
There is a pretty big difference between sawlogs and pulp logs.

[dsk]

Ron, yes, I did look at Pawlonia when I was researching fast growing trees. I'm in growing region 5b, or 6a at best, and about 2500 feet above sea level. I'm also in a rain shadow of the Alleghany front (crest of the Appalachian Mountain Range) and this region only gets about 25 inches of precip each year. The norm in the surrounding area is about 45 inches, and on the west side of the Alleghanies its as high as 55 inches (big timber grows over there).

I started growing some Pawlonia in pots this year from seed I ordered. I also started spotting them out in the wild after recognizing their purple flowers that bloom in the spring a couple weeks before their foliage begins to grow. All in all, while there does seem to be a market for the wood, from an aesthetic perspective, they're pretty unappealing. Aesthetics do play a part in this project, because if I can't find a market for the trees, then that's all I've got to fall back on... a good looking stand of trees that appeals to the eye, at least.

DSK

[dsk]

Tillaway, That's probably the closest thing to the horse's mouth I've heard. I looked at pulp, since that's what most Hybrid Poplar is grown for. But the concept didn't really appeal to me because the pulp plantations I've seen are pretty unappealing.

This whole effort really began out of my interest to increase the tree coverage on 10 acres of my property, reclaiming it from pasture. I was interested in getting some tall trees quickly, not so much in a marketable product. The Hybrid Poplars certainly establish a tall stand quickly, but then I started finding some instances of people growing them for saw logs. Not the reason I was initially interested, but now that I know it's a possibility, it certainly seems worth a little investigation.

That was the whole purpose for coming here to Forestry Forum and asking the question. I've gotten some great feedback. And what I'm taking away is that, as long as I don't put a lot of money into this, or expect a payoff, then I can grow some tall trees, and if I find a market for them it will be icing on the cake. That's good enough for me.

DSK

[JimMartin9999]

 I live in Germany, across the road from a 30-40 year old poplar plantation.  The Germans seem to be able to use any wood fiber produced.  However, the farmer who owns the plantation told he couldnīt sell the wood, , about 22 DBH.

[SwampDonkey]

10 years can make a major difference between the diameter of poplar trees.

Take a 30 year old poplar, it's probably close to 12 inches and add 1" to 1-1/2" per year for 10 years for well managed and spaced stems.

[Max sawdust]

DSK,
Here is my two cents.  First off you do not have that big of acreage to create a market that does not exist.  Market creation is a big deal takes many people with the same goal to create one.

As far as hybrid poplar, I think the people trying to sell you expensive seedlings have done a good job creating a market .  I can not believe you would get decent saw logs in the time frame you are talking about.

Pulp maybe, but look at the prices on the pulp market.  Sounds like an awfully lot of work for pulp.   Even at that is their a market for Aspen pulp in your area?

If it were me I would look at other products for the 10-15 year time frame.  Xmass trees?  Nursery stock?  or something else not related to trees.
Or I would plant in native hardwoods and let the next generation reap the benefit of the effort.
Max