Current Cedar Stumpage Price in South Central Missouri?

[MesquiteSawyer]

Hello Everyone,

I am meeting a landowner in a day or two to look at a bunch of cedar trees that he says will go 18" diameter on average.  I was just wondering what the trees might be worth on the stump.  He just wants his property cleaned up, and I figured it might be worth making some sort of trade if I could establish some sort of value for them.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

[Cedarman]

If they average 18", please take lots of pictures.  This would be one of the biggest stands of cedar around and worth a pretty penny.  Export cedar  logs go for over a buck a foot.  Hey, you never know until you look.  We pay about 1/4 to 1/3 of what it is worth at the mill.  We get paid to cut the cedar in Oklahoma.
A friend went to look at a patch of cedar that the owner said were 3 to 4 feet in diameter.  They were about 10 feet tall and 3 to 4 ' from limb tip to limb tip. :D :D

[Fedge]

I work a lot with white cedar. I love when someone tells me that all the trees are 15"+ in diameter and they all end up about 5" in diameter. I sure wish people knew the difference between diameter and circumference. The difference between the 2 is kind of a big deal.

Geoff

[thenorthman]

Working a job now the owner says they are 4' in diameter, so I go and expect to find 2'...  They are closer to 5' dbh... and straight without much swell...

[MesquiteSawyer]

Thank you all for the replies.

Cedarman, I will post a picture or two of what I find.  He is a crotchety one for sure, so I didn't pester him too much on the phone.   

Thenorthman, I am pretty sure that won't be the case here.   I would like to see some pictures of those trees if you care to share. 

I rescheduled the meeting for Monday so I guess we'll see.

[CCC4]

That type of stumpage is not really out of the question by any means in our area. I would bid 40% to the LO...I wouldn't lump it especially if he is a cranky old man. Any time you lump off cedar the LO feels cheated for some reason. At least this has been my experience.

Be sure to take a saw and bump a couple limbs off and maybe even fall a tree or two to check soundness befor you discuss money. Good Luck!

[ozarkgem]

Hello Everyone,

I am meeting a landowner in a day or two to look at a bunch of cedar trees that he says will go 18" diameter on average.  I was just wondering what the trees might be worth on the stump.  He just wants his property cleaned up, and I figured it might be worth making some sort of trade if I could establish some sort of value for them.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Prices he in SW Mo are .45 bf delivered at the mill. I wouldn't pay a whole lot for them. The ones I am cutting now have limbs from the ground up. Lots of labor to get them out. I have seen tress with not many limbs on them also depends on how thick the stand is. If they are real thick you get straighter trees with less limbs but you almost have to clear cut to get them out. They are so close they won't fall. I would like to see some pics. I can cut and load about 25 to 30 cedar logs a day. I use a ford tractor with a homemade winch on the 3 point(works excellent) and a loader on the front. But I am also 62 and don't have the juice I used to have. That is working by myself. They can be deceptive on the size with all the limbs on them. What looks like a good size tree gets small after all the limbs have been trimmed and its cut down. I also found it is easier to cut the limbs as high as you can reach with the saw before you fell it. The limbs don't break very easy and the butt of the log can end up 6' in the air if the limbs are left on. Plus its just easier to limb the standing tree. hope that helps.

[shelbycharger400]

The bigger they are, the more work,  erc seems the best yeild at 12 to 16 in dia,   bigger equals more issues.  I have only one left to drop from a job I did,  25 at 14 to 30 something,  only two butt logs went to the burn,  two are salvage logs and bout four look to be heavy Peck mix,  and that's from 25 trees , some gave me one log, some were 3 to 4 , only saved 5 8 in dia logs ,  count was over 70 logs.    I have a few 20 small 25 big end slabs in the stack now 8 ft Slabs,   2 logs gave me 15 at 2 in.   And 4 at 13 foot.      Yet to figure how a 18 in log clean and clear,  the core two slabs had an ant nest

[kderby]

You guys are awesome!

I am out here in Oregon with a similar species (Juniperous occidentalis).  I pay similar prices.  Much of what I have come up with for pricing has been my decision.  While opening a new market do you pay by the ton, cord, scale or linear foot?  I pay $400/mbf by the local scale which is Scribner decimal C.  That is the scale all the loggers know so I price juniper based on that scale. 

If we are into really good logs the logger or landowner want the issue of taper addressed.  Typical scale says two inches of taper for sixteen feet of log.  On Juniper I give it three inches.  If you get a thirty three foot juniper tree with a ten inch top the lower log is scaled as a thirteen inch top.

I know there is a cedar scale but everyone who logs knows/thinks in Scribner.

I do not pay stumpage.  I pay for the logger not the log.  The push here is to get rid of the water sucking trees and restore the historic grass/shrub landscape.  We want the grasslands not more trees!  By paying for the good logs I help recover the costs of juniper reduction.  Don't worry for the trees...we have ten million acres of juniper in Oregon. We are not pushing this species into extinction any time soon.

Kderby

[M_S_S]

Kderby is Fossil up by JohnDay? I live in northeast Cal, 30 miles south of Lakeview, OR. Like Derby said Juniper is a weed here. I don't pay stumpage for it unless I cut on NFS.     the feds have been using the con camps to cut vast amounts of juniper here. Lol kinda raies hell with the firewood business, every kid with a saw is in the business, cutting up what the cons fall. Heck I even have cut some, 4 bucks a cord to the NFS. I just cut firewood logs so no to concerned with the taper, but the bigger the diameter of the tree the more the taper. I have cut a lot of 40' logs 28" on the butt and 5" on the top. Ed

[shelbycharger400]

Yep,   when erc gets above 20",  the but log really likes to flair and curl on itself,  makes it interesting felling a 24 to 30 in  with a 20 in bar,  takes about 3 big notches for the opening face , side backcutting then power it through the center.   The biggins I use cable n chain and cumalong.      Seems market around here is kinda flat,  lots of inventory in several sawyers yards.not many calls on wood these days,  $  must be tight   

[Cedarman]

We can't get enough in Ky and In.
When I scale long logs, say 33', I measure the top log, move down, estimate next 8' log, move another 8', estimate again etc until tree is measure in 8' lengths. Odd lengths will get a 9', 10', 11' or 12' and sometimes 6'. I get orders for lengths  from 6' to 18' in 1' increments, so it is only a matter of bucking and sorting.
In Ok, we get paid 75 to 100 bucks per acre to cut.  We remove for free.  If we didn't take it for free, the landowner would have to push up the trees and burn them.  Like Oregon, 10 million acres more or less and Ok is a lot smaller.

Demand for ERC is tremendous.  Just turned down offer to quote 100 containers of 5x5, 6x6, 7x7 and 8x8 over the next 12 month.  Didn't even ask what they could pay.

[CCC4]

Cedarman, you dealing through Nancy from China on those container orders? I used to saw 32% of the ERC Chinese export. It's a good deal if you have enough money to pad your pocket while you wait for the check....my former boss sometimes would be waiting on $90,000 for several months! Nancy robs Peter to pay Paul...

Hey I see you are from Marengo, In. I was at Marengo Cave a couple months ago. Being a Kentucky native I was in the area for a visit.

[ozarkgem]

You guys are awesome!

I am out here in Oregon with a similar species (Juniperous occidentalis).  I pay similar prices.  Much of what I have come up with for pricing has been my decision.  While opening a new market do you pay by the ton, cord, scale or linear foot?  I pay $400/mbf by the local scale which is Scribner decimal C.  That is the scale all the loggers know so I price juniper based on that scale. 

If we are into really good logs the logger or landowner want the issue of taper addressed.  Typical scale says two inches of taper for sixteen feet of log.  On Juniper I give it three inches.  If you get a thirty three foot juniper tree with a ten inch top the lower log is scaled as a thirteen inch top.

I know there is a cedar scale but everyone who logs knows/thinks in Scribner.

I do not pay stumpage.  I pay for the logger not the log.  The push here is to get rid of the water sucking trees and restore the historic grass/shrub landscape.  We want the grasslands not more trees!  By paying for the good logs I help recover the costs of juniper reduction.  Don't worry for the trees...we have ten million acres of juniper in Oregon. We are not pushing this species into extinction any time soon.

Kderby

We use International scale for Cedar and Doyle for everything else

[Cedarman]

CCC4,
Nancy came by here quite a few years ago.  They are low payers and slow payers.  Was never interested in that market.   We did sell 2 containers to China through a different broker that worked out well, but they couldn't make our price work well and went to other suppliers. I sawed for Cedarworks for years and when that commodity market died, the internet gave me access to the rest of the US and World and we never looked back.
Do you know Win Bates at Hot Springs?  I have listened to him talk about Nancy.
My focus in now on value added  and specialty markets that pay up front and pay well.  Well, at least most of them do. :D :D

Ozark, the international scale is close enough to the cedar scale to work well enough on small logs.  We buy 75 to 80 % by the ton now.  5000' of small logs can be a bear to lay out, buck up, and scale.  I like long lengths to accomodate special orders that have yet to come in.

[CCC4]

Yes Sir, I know Win Bates. He was really good friends with my boss. Win didn't like Nancy at all...he got culled a lot though... I'm talkin' pretty rough scale, but he knew the specs... The only problems I had with her about my product was a couple times she sent pics of some Kentucky stuff claiming it was mine...she got confused a couple times.

Small World huh? I sawed export loads for 9 straight years, we sold small amounts to Korea (I bet you know that buyer also...I forgot his name, Korean but American name) and a small deal in Vietnam. You sound like you went the route of a semi local buyer named Paul...I bet you know of him also.

[CCC4]

We used to hand scale the logs but ended up going by weight probably 10 years ago. I was the guinea pig on the first few loads I brought in, we scaled them then weighed them. The sawmill does better with higher yield logs such as good woods cedar...the logger does better when selling field cedar with a lot of sap wood! ! I guess you just have to have your mind in the middle somewhere! !

[MesquiteSawyer]

Alright Y'all.   I met with the landowner today and he was nice enough in person.  We drove out to his property and I smiled as I drove up.  I am trying to post pictures so bear with me.  They have a few years left to go before they hit 15" diameter.  I'm still not sure how he came up with that number, but oh well. 

Well, I am not having any luck uploading pics here, but I think they are in my album if you want to see them.  Thank you all again for all of the words of wisdom.

-Mark

[shortlogger]

That's just cedar brush !

[shelbycharger400]

You potentially could make some with 15s I'd take em if I was near easy to mill

[thecfarm]

The pictures are in your album. The hard part is done. This should get them into a post.

I like to go to whatever post or start a new topic first to include a picture.Go to your gallery,it will open in a new window.Click onto your album,then click onto whatever picture you want,it will get bigger,than scroll down a little to find,Insert Image In Post,click onto that,click Yes and that is it. Some have to copy/paste the link to work.I like to hit the enter key at least once or twice to move the picture down away from what I am typing. The enter key really helps to leave some white space if posting more than one picture. Somewheres I think it says to add 10,000 to your user number or something like that to make a clickable icon to your gallery under your user name. Use the preview button to see how it looks and modify it if needed.

[ozarkgem]

CCC4,
Nancy came by here quite a few years ago.  They are low payers and slow payers.  Was never interested in that market.   We did sell 2 containers to China through a different broker that worked out well, but they couldn't make our price work well and went to other suppliers. I sawed for Cedarworks for years and when that commodity market died, the internet gave me access to the rest of the US and World and we never looked back.
Do you know Win Bates at Hot Springs?  I have listened to him talk about Nancy.
My focus in now on value added  and specialty markets that pay up front and pay well.  Well, at least most of them do. :D :D

Ozark, the international scale is close enough to the cedar scale to work well enough on small logs.  We buy 75 to 80 % by the ton now.  5000' of small logs can be a bear to lay out, buck up, and scale.  I like long lengths to accomodate special orders that have yet to come in.

So how much a ton do you pay for ERC? About the only buyers around here are the Amish and they scale. Most loads are on a trailer behind a pickup. Most loggers won't mess with it.

[Cedarman]

We pay 95 per ton.  The last 2 days had about 85 ton come in on 3 trucks.  Two were a touch overloaded.  One mill in Ky is paying 105 per ton, but they have to be good quality and bucked to 8', nothing smaller than 5".

[ozarkgem]

We pay 95 per ton.  The last 2 days had about 85 ton come in on 3 trucks.  Two were a touch overloaded.  One mill in Ky is paying 105 per ton, but they have to be good quality and bucked to 8', nothing smaller than 5".

by the ton is a lot easier its just everybody here is much smaller production. I think there is a mill a the Lake of the Ozarks that does Cedar trinkets for the tourist and they probably go by the ton. They take small stuff. How many BF in a ton on the average?

[CCC4]

We pay 95 per ton.  The last 2 days had about 85 ton come in on 3 trucks.  Two were a touch overloaded.  One mill in Ky is paying 105 per ton, but they have to be good quality and bucked to 8', nothing smaller than 5".

by the ton is a lot easier its just everybody here is much smaller production. I think there is a mill a the Lake of the Ozarks that does Cedar trinkets for the tourist and they probably go by the ton. They take small stuff. How many BF in a ton on the average?

Hey are you South enough to bring your logs to Gainesville? If you sell 52" Giles and Kendell is your way to go. i never cut much for them, I was always contracted out further South....but I have slipped some in up there when cutting near the Missouri border. Also they pay better for over size but are really really picky about ingrown bark seems in the butts..they will only scale from the butt end, inside the bark seams. Their bigger stuff can bring a premium but they don't want more than like 5 or 6 knots per viewable side. I heard on the radio that Giles is needing cedar....when they have a yard full though, they really get tough if they don't know you.

If you turn the trinkets over you will probably find a China sticker on the bottom. That stuff is hauled out 30 miles off International waters and sawn on ships and turned right back around and sold at Wally World in tourist traps. I'm sure some is processed in the States though, we have a company here that manufactures various dowel rods, fragrance balls and shoe stretchers.

Board footage on ERC by the load will vary so much I wouldn't even want to guess. If you weigh "soda pop bottled" field cedar....there is going to be waaay more weight than yield.