sitka spruce forestry

Elstemed

hey im just looking for some information on Sitka spruce (SS) forests. the questions I need answering are as follows


current price of a sitka spruce sawlog at farmgate - im guessing around €100 a ton?


rotation length of sitka spruce oin good land - thinking around 40years?


What sort of yeild class is available nowadays for SS


also when convering sitka spruce cubic metres to tons what percentage is on taking - again thinking arounnd 45% of a ton = a cubic metre of SS

TIA Elstemed

The_Conductor

It depends.

Exact yield and rotation length vary depending on provenance, site conditions, climatic conditions etc.

There is an argument that slower grown sitka should command a higher price as white deal, but this does not tend to be the case.

In Ireland an average rotation works out at between 38-50 years, with yield classes on average of 16-20 but on better sites of up to maybe 25 (some of the COFORD reports have examples as high as 31 or 32, but these are totally exceptional). Poor peaty sites, or areas with high exposure coefficients, may have yieldclasses as low as 6 or 7 (unfortunately a lot of Irish forestry is on totally unsuitable sites). Your idea of what constitutes "good land" may not necessarily correspond with optimal land from a forestry perspective......

Price for sawlog, in cubic meters, is about €240 per cubic meter.

Regarding converting cubic meters to tonnes- there are tables listing different conversion factors for different species. From memory (as I don't have a copy of the table to hand) SS has a factor of around 0.5*- which means 1 cubic meter might work out around 500kg or 2 cubic meters would be about a tonne) *note- confirm that this is right- it varies depending on species and some other factors. Sawn timber would be about twice as heavy per cubic meter, than sawlog.

I'd recommend you dig out Padraig Joyce's book on silviculture in Ireland- I think you'll find it helpful.

Elstemed

Is when i cut down a forest i have sawn timber and is it converted to sawlog when it is dried and passed through a mill? our am i missing something. what sort of conversion in price wise is sawn timber to sawlog. basically i want to know what price is Sitka Spruce at farmgate before it heads to mill

I got a consultant ccoming next week so do want to be a complete fool when talking to him

The_Conductor

You have sawlog leaving the farm, you have sawn timber after the mill has processed it. The Farmers Journal had an article on timber prices and trends in March '07 link here. I'll have a hunt and see if I can find more uptodate info elsewhere.

S.

Mungo21

"rotation length of sitka spruce on good land - thinking around 40years?"

Yield class will determine the stand thinning regime in the following way (approx.)

Yield Class 24 - 18 years
Yield Class 22 - 19 years
Yield Class 20 - 20 years
Yield Class 18 - 21 years
Yield Class 16 - 22 years
Yield Class 14 - 23 years
Yield Class 12 - 25 years
Yield Class 10 - 27 years
Yield Class 8 - 30 Years
Yield Class 6 - 35 Years

This will provide some revenue in the early stages by taking out the weaker trees (hopefully) but will increase your returns at the full rotation harvest. The full rotation harvest again will depend on your lands potential (yield class) but it will probably be between 40-60 years for Sitka.
Also it is important to know that generally the more work you do the higher you can get the price per cubic meter, so the price you get for selling the standing timber will probably be lower than if you cut it down and stack it by the road for delivery (however arrange this before you do cut it down). Remember thinning only occurs to allow room for the other better quality trees in the stand to grow, determining the thinning rotation will be done in one of two ways either by the basal area or the live crown ratio.


"What sort of yeild class is available nowadays for SS"

Average growth is between 14-16 m3/ha/yr generally I believe in Ireland and the UK (yield class 14-16).

"also when convering sitka spruce cubic metres to tons what percentage is on taking - again thinking arounnd 45% of a ton = a cubic metre of SS"

1x cubic meter = 0.35 tons
(however solid wood has a different conversion to stacked wood).

Hope this helps

TIA Elstemed[/QUOTE]

Johnnyr

smccarrick wrote: »

It depends.

Price for sawlog, in cubic meters, is about €240 per cubic meter.

Regarding converting cubic meters to tonnes- there are tables listing different conversion factors for different species. From memory (as I don't have a copy of the table to hand) SS has a factor of around 0.5*- which means 1 cubic meter might work out around 500kg or 2 cubic meters would be about a tonne) *note- confirm that this is right- it varies depending on species and some other factors. Sawn timber would be about twice as heavy per cubic meter, than sawlog.

To convert from tonnes to cubic metre of fresh spruce the conversion factor is 1.1, i.e. 1 t=1.1m3. The conversion factor for oak is 0.94 and beech 0.97. Faster growing broadleaves like ash and sycamore, have expansion factors of 1.28 and 1.20, respectively. See previous thread below. Mungo21 and smccarrick, please check your facts.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055273571&page=5

Timber prices are very good at the moment. Sawlog is fetching in excess of €50 per m3. Not anywhere near €240, as suggested by smccarrick.

Average YC for Sitka spruce in Ireland is 18-20. As smccarrick posted, YC 24 is not uncommon on productive mineral soils.

Figerty

Hi there,

I did some serious work on the mechancial Properties of Irish Sitka spruce in the past few years. It is a low density, fast growing wood of low strengh by comparsion with normal slow northern European or US varieties

My opinion, and conclusion was simple: In an Irish context, Sitka spruce is low quality wood suitable for the paper pulp industry. The Yield class system at this stage is outdated and largely irrelevant for the end use indication. It indicates the volume of wood added per year.

The growth rate in this country for Sitka Spruce is too great for any form of structural use. An indicator of this once was the number of growth rings per inch. Irish grown Sitke rarely comes under 2.5 to 3 rings per inch which is too fast growing for any form of structural use.

Plant Douglas Fir or some useful alternative. Hardwoods would be better and probably Ash would give you the best return of all.

Run a mile from Sitka. The ads on the radio are misleading about improved Sitka; it's still a crap timber!!!!

The_Conductor

It is low tensile strength certainly- but this does not necessarily exclude it from contruction usage (keep in mind we even managed to use our crap lodgepole pine via finger joinery!

My personal preference would be to plant Scots Pine (red deal) and I'd consider there to be a much more certain market for the end product than with Sitka.......

Figerty

low tensile strength, spiral grain, low density, high growth rates: I wonder could we classify it as a weed?

Plant something else...

The_Conductor

Figerty wrote: »

low tensile strength, spiral grain, low density, high growth rates: I wonder could we classify it as a weed?

Plant something else...

The big issue is much of recent planting (and indeed government policy) has been targetted at the fastest possible rotations. This is a hell of a lot easier to sell to the general farming community- many of whom view forestry as removing land from farming- and akin to treason. I certainly remember coming back after weekends to find tractors burnt out over the weekend- and indeed have had to replant following mysterious recurrent fires (some of which set bogfires that took over a year to extinguish)........

Its easier to tell someone they will have a return in 30 years- than they are going to plant something for their great grandchildren............

sbkenn

Plant for your great grandchildren, or sell the plantation (the trees) as an investment. Many companies will buy growing timber, and let it grow, and sell it again ... as growing timber. All you have to do is thin and prune in order to maximise it's value for sale.

Kovu

Zombie thread. sbkenn, if you have a question about sitka spruce, please open a new thread instead of resurrecting old ones from 2008.


Thread Closed.