Farm forestry and making it pay

ford2600

It seems to me that there is lots of small private farm forests about; planted to avail of 20 years of free grant aid but a primarily clueless owners (myself included) on making it aa good a plantation as it can be while making it pay for itself after 20 yrs and before final harvest.

I'm 41 and the son of the man who planted our 20 acres 21 years ago. I reckon I'm pretty typical +/- a few years.

7 acres of ash, which I took and interest in from get go and as such is as good a plantation of ash as you would see. The ash has been the easy bit. The world's worst sales man could sell ash in the hottest day of the year.

14 acres of spruce hasn't been so easy. While I enjoyed thinning/tending the ash bit by bit I had a dread of tackling the other wood.

My main problem was I knew two local guys involved in forestry harvesting, and while on friendly terms with them I knew my wood would be probably worse off after they passed through it, so I put it on long finger until 3 years ago and did it by hand.

Got a contractor to do half whike i cut the other half and he hauled and stacked on runners all the thinnings and covered it.

Another blast of procrastination before this week when I processed about half of wood into 100 cubic meters of split wood.

Spent about two weeks prior building sales;
1. primarily people I knew/trusted with (or with access to trailers) to come into yard by appointment and fill direct with processor

2. Two local large shops with decent demand for wood took orders for bulk delivery of bulk bags.

3. Filled two large tractor trailers belonging to kind neighbouring farmers (5-6 cubic meters) and parked and covered them until I had time to sell them. One sold from a reference from one buyer the second sold when buyer saw the first one being delivered.

4. Processing wood which doesn't need to be split is a waste, so I separated out light stuff while keeping processor fed with heavy. Selling the light stuff to some as is or cutting to order for people with small stoves.

In my limited experience with processor, a Halke Pilke 37, being organised is key. Keep machine working; no delays on infeed(by having rack right and close) and no delay on removing/storing wood by feeding trailers or into shed. To make it pay with bags another operator to remove stack bags would be essential.

Wood is bone dry and selling itself, don't know why I was so reluctant to do it! Just my experience would welcome any input good or bad

BorneTobyWilde

Does it not have to season until dry?
It's cut and then sold for firewood.
Would you not sell uncut to timber mills ?

ford2600

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Does it not have to season until dry?
It's cut and then sold for firewood.
Would you not sell uncut to timber mills ?

Yes, cut, stacked and covered for over 2 years.

You could sell to mills when fresh. If you want less work/hassle using a harvester and doing that seems to be the most popular. I was doing first thinning with quality of final harvest in mind.

Icelandicseige

Just curious lads. Would you keep your SFP payment on land that you put in forestry?

fergus1001

Icelandicseige wrote:

Just curious lads. Would you keep your SFP payment on land that you put in forestry?

Yes of coarse you do it is still concidered as part of the farm, believe me I know

BorneTobyWilde

What about rates to haul timber to mill, how much does that cost.

fergus1001

BorneTobyWilde wrote:

What about rates to haul timber to mill, how much does that cost.

Depends on the distance

ford2600

Just finished processing the 2nd half; all done in one long day about 60-70 cubic meters.

Different machine this time, he was more local and easier to organise.

This is type of machine. Well made and much safer to use,

http://www.bfm.ie/used-sales/machinery/tajfun-wood-processors-detail

I'll probably have to go back in and thin again soon,