profit from thinnings

corco2000

from your first thinnings of mixed decidous wood.birch alder native species what would you expect to make per acre?
ive read that you be lucky to break even?would first cut be after 12-15yrs?
whar uses of wood can you maximise profit?

also with oak trees when would you expect first thinnings and how long for maturity? what would you hope to earn per acre first cut and last ?

thank you

BreadnBuddha

http://www.teagasc.ie/forestry/advice/thinning_firstreturn.asp

A starting point anyway.

corco2000

thank you bb

timfromtang

corco2000 wrote: »

from your first thinnings of mixed decidous wood.birch alder native species what would you expect to make per acre?
ive read that you be lucky to break even?would first cut be after 12-15yrs?
whar uses of wood can you maximise profit?

also with oak trees when would you expect first thinnings and how long for maturity? what would you hope to earn per acre first cut and last ?

thank you

well, almost unlimitited i'd suggest .........

dodgy?

well my experience is limited, having thinned only once so far 16Ha in 2013 jun-aug

the amount you can make from your timber is limited really by the amount of work you can put in to add value

for example,, firewood, to produce this yourself, you need to fell, limb, bundle, haul, cut, and split the wood, but you have increased the value of the finished product (18 months later) to at least 75 euro per loose metre cubed, up to twice this if you are prepared to bag and sell your timber in smaller packages.

you may have some larch (planted as a nurse to oak commonly) after 12-15 years some of these will be large enough to produce planks and fenceposts with an inexpensive chainsaw attachment (logosol timberjig et al), this would again increase the value of that timber quite a lot (you can probably get 600 euro per cubic metre of larch planks)

to get all extreme and silly, lets imagine you can carve wooden spoons, and you choose to hand carve a spoon from each tree you fell, whilst this might take SOME TIME, perhaps you could sell such spoons for 10 euro each (with a nice bit of string and a label saying who you are and the tree species and a little about the wonderful green tree farm that it comes from), we felled some 48,000 stems last thinning and tending on our 16 Ha, those numbers get silly, even at a profit margin of only 2 euro per spoon that is nearly 100K

Or indeed perhaps you have some ash growing, these can reach 200mm dia or so at this kind of age, some of this timber will be suitable for tool handles, or indeed for small specialist planks such as those used by Bodhrán makers.....

so you see what i mean

limited only by your imagination and the amount of work and rescourcefullness you can put in

what about machinery limits you ask?

well............

a bale lifter (for handling round bales of silage) carried on the rear linkage of a farm tractor, with a sheet of 30mm plywood or similar lashed to the back against the back of the tractor, and with a round bale feeder (carried as a bale would be) lashed to the bale lifter with a lorry strap, this is a device which can easily and quickly move a LOT of wood out of your forest quickly, simply cut to 1.3 metre lengths approx in the forest, and as you reverse up the rack throw them into the feeder lengthwise, i have got enough wood into the feeder using this method to lift the front wheels on out really old Zetor 6945,

We have used a vehicle tow rope with a hook on both ends in combination with a tractor back loader to make a good bundle skidding arrangement too, with the bucket removed, the tractor is simply reversed up to the bundle and the rope pushed under and hooked into a noose on the bundle, the other end being simply wrapped multiple times over the beam of the back loader and hooked to one of the holes, th eloader will then lift the bundle front nicley and allow skidding to the yard for processing

posibillities are endless...........

at least im my humble opinion



timfromtang