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Buying timber land, looking for best location

Started by soontobelogger, December 11, 2015, 09:54:36 AM

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soontobelogger

I am currently looking into the purchase of acreage that is completely wooded. So far my land search has lead me to the Eastern KY, Northeastern TN area. Terrain is rather steep on most tracts, but that is also the tracts that are less expensive. I have found tracts for 500 per acre in the 60-90 acre range.

Is there somewhere else that can match the 500 per acre prices?

I want to cut about 15000 board feet per year of mixed hardwoods off the land

I realize there are a ton of variables involved but I at least know what I need out of the land.


Is 100 acres enough? Thoughts?







JBlain

That's a tough question.

Ideally you would find a property with high volume of timber on productive soils for the lowest price possible. 

In my journey, the $500/acre tracts are usually priced that way for a reason.  High-graded several times, extremely steep slopes, limited to no access, clouded title, subsurface issues, low productivity soils...the list goes on and on....

In Pennsylvania, most people buy timber land with other objectives being primary, hunting, recreation, solitude, cabin, etc..and the forest management is a product of managing the forest for your objectives. 

In my experience, most of the time when it is to good to be true it is....most of the straight timber land investment plays nowadays are made by large investment funds that place pension dollars and other institutional money into large tracts 5,000+ acres.

I would have my doubt you could harvest 15,000 bd ft a year off 100 acres if it is in the condition most properties are in the 500/acre range.
Josh

Corley5

To harvest 15,000 board feet annually from a northern hardwood forest would require more than 100 acres  :-\
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BargeMonkey

 You can find affordable flatter decent sized chunks of land in N-NY but it's been butchered. Pre- 9/11 land was 500-1500 an acre, now if you find it for 3-5k on this side of the county your doing lucky. I agree with the other guys, 15k ft a yr is going to have you thinned out in 5-7yrs in a decent 100 acre woodlot.

CuddleBugFirewood

I have been thinking about this too.  I live in Southern Illinois and most ground with timber on it is recreational ground going for 3-4,000 acre depending on how close you are to st. Louis.  If you get down in Kentucky or Missouri, $1,000-2,000 an acre seems to be more accurate according to the listings on various real estate sites.  I have some family in Louisville Kentucky, and they indicate you can find ground in central / eastern kentucy for 500 to 1,000.     

One good read if you are interested in timber investing was "How to make money growing trees"  It was an older book(and expensive, but it had some interesting points about managing a forest for annual income and how many acres you would need ect...If anyone knows of additional timberland investing resources, I would like to read/hear about them.

I tend to agree that on the surface it would appear that you may not be able to do what you are wanting, but a lot of that depends on soil types, initial stocking levels, ect.  You would also have to know the average growth rate of the trees to see if you are dipping into timber capital.  For example, if you had roughly 2,500 bd ft per acre, and your growth rate was 4% then you are putting on 10,000 bd ft per year on a 100 acre track.  Lots of variables. 

A forester will hopefully be along to comment and can shed more light on this.   


grassfed

So if my math is right I figure that 15,000 bf on 100 acres is 150 bf per acre per year.

Now if I estimate that using 2 cords per 1000 bf for volume of wood that would be 1000/150=6.666(or 2/3rds) of 2 cords or 1/3rd cord per year. Now if a cord is 128 cubic feet then that would be 128/3= 42  cubic feet per year. (I just checked my math and if you use 3.333 instead of 3 it is more like 38 cubic feet per year)

Now according to the NRCS my better hardwood land has a forest productivity rating of 43 cubic feet per acre for sugar maple but that is for an unmanaged even aged stand so I would think that you could do better if you managed it well.

My point is that 15,000bf per 100 acres seems theoretically possible if you found a really well managed stand but unlikely for the kind of money you are talking about because a stand like that may have a pretty high stumpage value attached to the base price for the land.

My big caveat is that this is based on NE Vermont so the growth rates/species could be a lot different down south.
(If anybody wants to correct my math and or assumptions please do)

You can look up any land you find on the NRCS soil survey and if you can figure out how to use the site you can find out about the soil type,  growth rates and such.   http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm
 
Mike

chester_tree _farmah

Agree. It would have to be a very mature 100 acres that has been managed for saw logs and veneer to get that type of volume.
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Autocar

Finding wooded timber land that hasn't been logged to death will be the hardest thing to find.
Bill

JBlain

I think your calculations seem plausible.    In PA, stands that have good soils and well managed with 6-10,000 bd ft standing volume sell for 3-6,000 acre depending upon dirt value which is lower in the northern remote areas and rural western areas and higher in south central and eastern PA. 

For people thinking about long term investment and management,  the NRCS online soil mapper is the place to start.  Depending on soils, aspect and slopes, bad growth sites might struggle to produce 50 bd ft acre year and top notch ones 300 plus. 

Josh

JBlain

Great point Autocar.   If you jump on the RE listing and look at the larger properties for sale, 99 plus percent are blitzed right before sale or 10 years ago then the seller sits on it until it "greens up" some
Josh

thecfarm

soontobelogger,welcome to the forum.
I suppose this 15000 bf would be going to a mill,by your handle?
Remember taxes need to be paid on the land too.
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ga jones

Most tracts here average 8000bf per acre. 100 acres would be plenty. .Your not going to get that in mountain country though. Land here is also $ 5-10,000 an acre..I never been in Kentucky or Tennessee either but it's still in the Appalachian hard wood belt.
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soontobelogger

I wanted to bump this back up to the top as I recently was able to purchase 130 acres of woods in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. 

I was able to have the KY Division of Forestry out and they did an initial survey of the property. Came back with 2000 bf per acre. Mostly tulip poplar, chestnut oak and beech. It was definitely in need of management as the number of saplings that are not beech or red maple is very slim.

Going to start a new thread with a proper intro with all my hopes and dreams :D

nativewolf

Quote from: soontobelogger on October 15, 2018, 10:46:46 AM
I wanted to bump this back up to the top as I recently was able to purchase 130 acres of woods in the hills of Eastern Kentucky.

I was able to have the KY Division of Forestry out and they did an initial survey of the property. Came back with 2000 bf per acre. Mostly tulip poplar, chestnut oak and beech. It was definitely in need of management as the number of saplings that are not beech or red maple is very slim.

Going to start a new thread with a proper intro with all my hopes and dreams :D
2000 BF per acre?  Gosh...a bit low, if saplings are mostly maple/beech those are legacy saplings and it was cut over in the past.  Well, the good news is you own a 130 acres of hardwood and you can improve it!  KY has some great hardwood soils.  Do you own mineral rights?  

By counter example here in N VA, I have yellow poplar (tulip poplar) forest with 20k bdft/acre.  3k feet/tree sometimes.  That land costs $6k/acre though but that is due to proximity to DC.  Hunting lease on that land is worth $25 to 30/acre/year.  


Congratulations on the land purchase.  Send some pictures, we all love pictures.  Hopefully you have some funds leftover to invest in improving the site.
Liking Walnut

mike_belben

Youve got your work cut out for you, but i think if you can tolerate being covered in itch and bites most of the year, youll find its a labor of love.  Hard work, but thats good for ya.
Praise The Lord

soontobelogger

Yes it is going to be a labor of love... I have already started by buying a clearing saw and going to town. 

The way the property lies is the holler runs slightly off due north and south, so I have one side of the mountain that gets sun all day and is the white, red oak and hickory side. Other side will be in the shade about 2pm and is mostly tulip poplar, sweet gum and maple with the odd oak or hickory mixed in. In the couple months of walking, I have yet to see a cherry or walnut.

This picture is the western facing ridge with a nice patch of white oaks on a flat 

 

decent red oak right off the road


 

eastern facing ridge.... tall straight sweet gums....


 


mike: i too am trying to improve the deer herd. had a bad case of blue tongue come through last year so it will be a while before it recovers. got about half acre of food plots in. coming up decent with all the rain lately... kinda slapped it together but the clover is coming in good now, almost as tall as the rye


 




Southside

Not sure about over your way but there are guys buying gum like that here for mat wood these days and it pays pretty decent.  
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mike_belben

I havent had the time or money to plant real food plots yet but have had really good results by other means.  Mostly culling or hingecutting small red maple, black gum and sourwood trees.  Either the laying tree sprouts along the trunk or the stump coppices shoots radially in the spring and deer feed pretty hard in it. One down side is i lack the concentrating nature of a singular plot and my deer can be anywhere but i have been narrowing down to travel lanes of my choosing.  I documented a lot of it in the deer stand improvement thread in this forum.   The deer love beech nuts btw. and obviously hickory and oak.  Im not certain about sweetgum. 


If youve got a lot of garbage trees youre gonna have to either sell pulp or firewood.  Lotta work but the woods will respond very well to it.  I dont know if there are any big paper operations near you.  Bowater is near sweetwater TN and i think rocktenn is in stevenson alabama which are where our paper goes.  1 to 2 hour haul 1way. 
Praise The Lord

John Mc

Quote from: soontobelogger on October 15, 2018, 10:41:02 PM
This picture is the western facing ridge with a nice patch of white oaks on a flat  

Congratulations on your purchase! Looks like you've got a nice place to keep you occupied for a while.
I would suggest looking at putting in some waterbars on your trails (or broad-based dips, if the grade is shallow enough for them to work - the dips are easier to drive through). It appears you already have a bit of erosion on that trail. It will only get worse if you don't do something to get the water off the trails. As it is now, the banks which have developed on each side are holding the water in the trail.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.   - Abraham Maslow

East ky logging

Congratulations. Looking forward to seeing your progress. The Kentucky dept. of fish and wildlife has wildlife biologists that could give some good ideas on doing a timber stand improvement.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety- Benjamin Franklin

soontobelogger

No mineral rights with the property as there are already a few production gas wells on the property. That road in the picture is the road that the gas company "maintains". I'm working with them on finding another less steep route to get to the wells on top.

Now that the weather has turned colder, going to start dropping some trees around the better oaks and hickories... 

Looks like I am going to have to supplement with some seedlings in the spring as well.... I walked one 2 acre section on the western facing ridge and counted a total of 3 saplings that were oak or hickory. The shade tolerant species have completely taken over. 

 

Almost wonder if 5 acre clear cut patches and then plant the seedlings makes sense?


mike_belben

Welcome to appalachian highgrading!  I feel for you.  


Look up "shelterwood technique."  It claims and i feel confident in confirming that hardwoods are happier with big patch full sun clearings.  Shady light produces fast growing maple and gum, and slow growing twisty hardwood that bends and reaches for any chunk of sun it can get before dying because it was overcome by maple in 20 years.  Its a waste of years to grow tie logs.   I am very very critical of choosing shade tolerant keepers.  If they arent near perfect or near harvest size they go now.  You cant overcull 8ft tall maple, sassafras, sourwood or gum sapplings.  Theyll be back again in two years.  

Im in middle TN with a few years of headstart on repair experiments if you want to come check it out.  Ticks are down and leaves are still up right now. 
Praise The Lord

mike_belben




Cut.  Then cut some more.  



This is a good image to illustrate where i cleared around that canopy keeper all at once.  But note the seedlings in shade cant break out while the ones in the intense light are nearly head high.  Same time frame.  It takes a long time for trees to mature in full sun, nevermind shade. 
Praise The Lord

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