Getting into Forestry

One More Toy

Hello

Im a country boy now living in the big smoke and have always found forests amazing and would like to plant one on my own

My brain isnt working right so I was wondering if someone could plant me (pardon the pun) in the right direction

I have no land so that would need to be the first purchase, how big a site would it have to be to make it viable?

timfromtang

hello one more toy,
Agricultural land is expensive, and often devalued by planting forest on it ??? dunno why but there it is. Our farm for example now it is planted has plummeted in market value. 
Many parcels of planted land come on the market, often when the premium payments run out. 
A 20 year old piece of land already planted is often great value, and if you adopt continuous cover management you can over time transform the forest into what you desire. With continuous cover management harvesting and planting or natural regeneration goes on all the time.
Just my suggestion, but you may like to look at forestsales.ie and see what appeals to you.
As for site size and viability, on the extremes, a 1 hectare site with hardwoods planted would be adequate for a forester who produced wooden spoons and firewood to heat his/her home, a 400 hectare site with sitka or norway spruce would be adequate for a forester who used contractors for all the work and sold sawlog to the sawmills. in the median, a 30 hectare site would suit a forester who wished to produce fruit and nuts along with timber, or 40 hectares (like our farm) would suit a forester who wished to produce planks, charcoal and firewood, the possibilities are frankly endless.
feel free to pm me if you wish I'll share my number with you and we can have a chat, indeed you'd be welcome to visit our forest now 21 years old.
tim

Depends what you want - if you bought an older house with a big garden you could plant that as a personal wood.

One More Toy

timfromtang wrote: »

hello one more toy,
Agricultural land is expensive, and often devalued by planting forest on it ??? dunno why but there it is. Our farm for example now it is planted has plummeted in market value. 
Many parcels of planted land come on the market, often when the premium payments run out. 
A 20 year old piece of land already planted is often great value, and if you adopt continuous cover management you can over time transform the forest into what you desire. With continuous cover management harvesting and planting or natural regeneration goes on all the time.
Just my suggestion, but you may like to look at forestsales.ie and see what appeals to you.
As for site size and viability, on the extremes, a 1 hectare site with hardwoods planted would be adequate for a forester who produced wooden spoons and firewood to heat his/her home, a 400 hectare site with sitka or norway spruce would be adequate for a forester who used contractors for all the work and sold sawlog to the sawmills. in the median, a 30 hectare site would suit a forester who wished to produce fruit and nuts along with timber, or 40 hectares (like our farm) would suit a forester who wished to produce planks, charcoal and firewood, the possibilities are frankly endless.
feel free to pm me if you wish I'll share my number with you and we can have a chat, indeed you'd be welcome to visit our forest now 21 years old.
tim

Thank you for your extensive reply tim, ive had a look at the website you provided and buying already planted land could be a more viable option.

Im confused about grant/premiums; and about types of tree, i see teagasc are having information days but i cant make this round unfortunately so i will keep an eye out on that

I may indeed take up your offer in the near future for a visit!!

dairede3

Any updates on how you got on?

I'm from a similar background and don't have any land of my own but was looking into buying some marginal land.. about 100-150acres and planting it.

accidental forester

Hi All, The ~20 year old existing forestry route can be quite worthwhile. Particularly if you can locate a suitable parcel relatively close to you. We were fortunate enough to come across a 20 hectare plantation within 20 minutes of our home place. As Tim points out, quite a few plantation owners loose interest when their premiums run out at 20 years (as they did under the older schemes). On the downside, these same owners tend to be ones that made no effort to maintain their investments. In our case, the owner had literally not set foot in it during the 20 years. We had to use old ordinance survey maps to figure out where the entrance road had been. There had been no thinning and the site was deemed too unstable to thin at that late stage. We are harvesting the continual wind-throw for firewood and some planking. Areas that become cleared are being replanted with suitable hardwoods, fruit trees, berry shrubs, etc.. It has been a steep learning curve and with an expensive outlay for equipment but very satisfying project that might even break even at some point in the future.

Here's another site advertising forestry: http://www.foresttomarket.ie/forest-sales.asp

dairede3

Accidental forester that's a good website, I hadn't hadn't seen it before, cheers.

I can see your point. Getting a forest at about 20 years, you could probably get a couple of thinnings and maybe clear fell in another 15-20 years roughly and hopefully be able to replant at that stage and make a profit.

My difficulty with that approach is I'm 30 so I don't have the savings to buy a parcel of forestry outright so I'd need a loan. I don't think I could afford the cost of a loan without the help of the afforestation premiums as it stands.

What I'd ideally like to be able to do would be buy some approved land for forestry with the help of some financing from the bank and plant it and hopefully pay off the loan with the premiums over 10+ years. That would hopefully leave the thinnings and clear felling for making a return on the investment - around the time I'd be retiring! 😅

I imagine this is a very simplistic view of things but I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments and about any experience any if you have had.

Accidentally

dairede3 wrote: »

Accidental forester that's a good website, I hadn't hadn't seen it before, cheers.

I can see your point. Getting a forest at about 20 years, you could probably get a couple of thinnings and maybe clear fell in another 15-20 years roughly and hopefully be able to replant at that stage and make a profit.

My difficulty with that approach is I'm 30 so I don't have the savings to buy a parcel of forestry outright so I'd need a loan. I don't think I could afford the cost of a loan without the help of the afforestation premiums as it stands.

What I'd ideally like to be able to do would be buy some approved land for forestry with the help of some financing from the bank and plant it and hopefully pay off the loan with the premiums over 10+ years. That would hopefully leave the thinnings and clear felling for making a return on the investment - around the time I'd be retiring! 😅

I imagine this is a very simplistic view of things but I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments and about any experience any if you have had.

If i was you I would take Tim up on his kind offer, before you do anything. It's very easy to loose money on forestry, so I'd be very nervous about getting into debt to finance it.

Also have a think about who's going to manage it. Equipment and manpower can quickly strip you of any profits, so much better if you're willing to get your hands dirty. Don't underestimate the workload.

accidental forester

Hi One More Toy,

I was intrigued with your proposal to take out a loan for some agri land and cover some of the payment with the premium. The loans in these examples are BofI's investor loan for 75% of the cost for 10 years. Planting scheme is GPC5 (broadleaf at €605.00 per ha for <10ha). For simplicity sake, I've reduced this down to costs for a single acre. At a purchase price of €5000 per acre (€1250 down payment), you'd have to put up €19.35 a month to make up the difference. At €7000 per acre (€1750 down payment), it would rise to €35.25 per month to make up the difference. At the lower end of the scale it might be worth it on a small holding.
On the other hand, the existing forestry can go for less than €2000 an acre. At the moment, a seller in Mayo has 14 acres on offer for €1785 per acre. This is on DoneDeal. There are several other bits of forestry on DoneDeal at the moment although none of the others have prices. If you're thinking of going down the existing plantation route, I would suggest you have a registered forester evaluate it before making any move. For a couple hundred Euro you'll get the yield class info, a rough value compared to other plantation sales in the area, recommendations as to thinning, roads, felling licenses, etc.. We found this invaluable as we were serious newbies to the world of commercial forestry.
As Accidentally mentions, the amount of work can be overwhelming. Fortunately we first saw our plantation in good condition. Then Darwin struck. If we had seen that level of destruction, we would have run a mile. Now we just shrug our shoulders and add any new damage to the list which we now know we will never get to the end of. We had 90% of the Darwin damage cleaned up when Ophelia hit. Half a year on, I'm maybe through about 10% of that hit. It will take me over a year (I do have to actually "work" sometime) to clear the one area I'm working on and there are several more after it.
Having said all that, I'm never happier than a good day in the woods with a couple of chainsaws, winches and all the other stuff untangling a mass of Sitka.

dto001

Excuse for rehashing this post.
Can anyone tell me how exactly you can make money from buying existing forestry?
Is it just the thinning’s and clear fell or is there other means?
And what about replanting after clear felling?

Thanks in advance

timfromtang

dto001 wrote: »

Excuse for rehashing this post.
Can anyone tell me how exactly you can make money from buying existing forestry?
Is it just the thinning’s and clear fell or is there other means?
And what about replanting after clear felling?

Thanks in advance

A Forest has a lot of outputs.
Some are obvious
Some less so.
If you just sell roundwood from thinning and clearfell and use a contractor then you will not make much (unless you have a large area and a GOOD crop)
Money is generated in forestry when work is done on the trees.
nurseries, planters, grass clearing, fencing, site preparation, these folk all get paid.

the guy/gal who cuts them and moves them to roadside gets paid
the haulier gets paid
the sawmills make a profit too on roundwood they convert to lumber.


Other outputs like amenity use and wild food may make less money but generate significant goodwill.


For Example I regularly host Scout troops who wish to cut pioneering poles in my forest, I get paid for this and generally enjoy my day with the scouts in the woods.


hope this helps
tim

dto001

Sorry again im still a bit confused.

If i buy say 20 acres of 20 year old forestry mainly conifers how do i get a return on my money?
As there is no grant on it and If i have to contract in people and not make any money on it whats the point? And there are people buying it all the time, I just dont understand why and how they make money?

I would love to have some for my own use but i cant justify just having it for fun.

Thanks again

timfromtang

dto001 wrote: »

Sorry again im still a bit confused.

If i buy say 20 acres of 20 year old forestry mainly conifers how do i get a return on my money?
As there is no grant on it and If i have to contract in people and not make any money on it whats the point? And there are people buying it all the time, I just dont understand why and how they make money?

I would love to have some for my own use but i cant justify just having it for fun.

Thanks again

Well, lets imagine its a plot of Sitka spruce and its been thinned once and roads have been made.

There will be a few pound from subsequent thins even if contractors are used as the produce will have higher value with a higher proportion of pallet wood and sawlog.
At clear fell say about year 35, there will be a big chunk of change and replanting costs are not excessive.
after replanting at year 15-18 you'll be first thinning again very little money this time, but subsequent thins will make more money and

after another 35 yrs or so you've another clearfell on your hands.
So by buying forest at 20 yrs old, you have received the benefit of two 35 year rotations and clearfells over the next 50 years.
tim


A forester will be able to help you quantify these financial yields on any particular plot you may want to look at.
It is my understanding that high yield class sitka plantations can be very profitable if managed properly.

One More Toy

Hello,

I'm back again with buying a forest in mind in the next 5 years or so. In the meantime I'd like to learn all I can about it.

Could anyone point me towards any resources to learn more?

Thank you in advance

timfromtang

One More Toy wrote: »

Hello,

I'm back again with buying a forest in mind in the next 5 years or so. In the meantime I'd like to learn all I can about it.

Could anyone point me towards any resources to learn more?

Thank you in advance

How'r'ya again one more toy, How about a "
Reading List" to get you started.
Farm Woodland Management by John Blyth, Julian Evans, William E. S. Mutch, Caroline Sidwell ISBN 0-85236-173-4 Published 1987

Plantation Silviculture in Europe by Peter Savill, Julian Evans, Daniel Auclair, Jan Falck ISBN 0-19-854908-3 Oxford University Press

Growing Broadleaves by Padraic M. Joyce ISBN 0-9523938-9-1 COFORD

The Silviculture of trees used in British Forestry by Peter S Savill ISBN 0-85198-739-7 CABI Publishing
The Woodland Way by Ben Law ISBN 978-1-85623-009-4 Published by Permanent Publications

You should be able to find these online easily enough, indeed most are probably available through the public library system. The first covers the practical aspects nicely.
The second "Plantation Silviculture" goes considerably deeper into the subject.

The third Growing Broadleaves gives specific guidelines for individual broadleaf species and has useful information on timber properties which helps a great deal when sourcing markets for your produce.

The Fourth book whilst similar in scope to the third covers more species and will be useful in helping you decide whether a particular species is desirable for you in any plantation you might buy.

The last is a permaculture approach to small woodland management, and useful in identifying all the potential outputs of your forest. hope this helps tim Of course you are welcome to contact me by pm I'll give you my number if you'd like a chat.

One More Toy

timfromtang wrote: »

How'r'ya again one more toy, How about a "Reading List" to get you started. Farm Woodland Management by John Blyth, Julian Evans, William E. S. Mutch, Caroline Sidwell ISBN 0-85236-173-4 Published 1987 Plantation Silviculture in Europe by Peter Savill, Julian Evans, Daniel Auclair, Jan Falck ISBN 0-19-854908-3 Oxford University Press Growing Broadleaves by Padraic M. Joyce ISBN 0-9523938-9-1 COFORD The Silviculture of trees used in British Forestry by Peter S Savill ISBN 0-85198-739-7 CABI Publishing The Woodland Way by Ben Law ISBN 978-1-85623-009-4 Published by Permanent Publications You should be able to find these online easily enough, indeed most are probably available through the public library system. The first covers the practical aspects nicely. the second "Plantation Silviculture" goes considerably deeper into the subject. The third Growing Broadleaves gives specific guidelines for individual broadleaf species and has useful information on timber properties which helps a great deal when sourcong markets for your produce. The Fourth book whilst similar in scope to the third covers more species and will be useful in helping you decide whether a particular species is desirable for you in any plantation you might buy. The last is a permaculture approach to small woodland management, and useful in identifying all the potential outputs of your forest. hope this helps tim Of course you are welcome to contact me by pm I'll give you my number if you'd like a chat.

Thanks very much it was very kind of you to list those out! I'll see if I can get them on the kindle or indeed second hand/library.

Are there any courses one can do?

A forest had been on my mind for years and I want to make it a beautiful reality

timfromtang

How'r'ya again one more toy, How about a Reading List to get you started. Farm Woodland Management by John Blyth, Julian Evans, William E. S. Mutch, Caroline Sidwell ISBN 0-85236-173-4 Published 1987. Plantation Silviculture in Europe by Peter Savill, Julian Evans, Daniel Auclair, Jan Falck ISBN 0-19-854908-3 Oxford University Press. Growing Broadleaves by Padraic M. Joyce ISBN 0-9523938-9-1 COFORD. The Silviculture of trees used in British Forestry by Peter S Savill ISBN 0-85198-739-7 CABI Publishing. The Woodland Way by Ben Law ISBN 978-1-85623-009-4 Published by Permanent Publications You should be able to find these online easily enough, indeed most are probably available through the public library system. The first covers the practical aspects nicely. The second Plantation Silviculture goes considerably deeper into the subject. The third Growing Broadleaves gives specific guidelines for individual broadleaf species and has useful information on timber properties which helps a great deal when sourcong markets for your produce. The Fourth book whilst similar in scope to the third covers more species and will be useful in helping you decide whether a particular species is desirable for you in any plantation you might buy. The last is a permaculture approach to small woodland management, and useful in identifying all the potential outputs of your forest. hope this helps tim Of course you are welcome to contact me by pm and I'll give you my number if you'd like a chat.

timfromtang

Hi one more, Yes there are courses, an Honours Degree is available from UCD, an ordinary Degree from WIT, and lower level courses at places like Ballyhaise agricultural college. Teagasc run very useful timber information events for forest owners too. Get hold of your local Teagasc Forestry Adviser, he/she is sure to be able to help. tim Ps I tried to format that last post several times, but boards seems to feel the need to remove all the line spacings I inserted to make it readable.

One More Toy

Interested in a few thoughts

Would it make more sense to buy an already planted forest?

What minimum size would be required to be commercially viable?

timfromtang

Hi one more,
Forested land is much cheaper (although rising quickly) than agricultural land, and a forest with expired premium would be ready without any waiting on your part to begin to generate an income.
However you would obviously be limited in species choice. Very diverse forests like mine (33 different species/varieties) are rare and seldom come to market. It would be expensive to buy quality farmland and establish high value species such as Walnut, Cherry, Spanish Chestnut, Holly, Yew, Oak etc.

As for minimum size to be commercially viable, that is very variable, for example 1/2 acre of maple would be sufficient to supply the needs of a full time spoon carver, 5 acres of ash/oak/sycamore would fulfil the needs of a green woodworker making chairs etc. In excess of 150 Hectares would be required to make a living using contractors for harvesting and selling sitka to the sawmills in order to make a full time living.

A great deal depends on the amount of the work that you plan to do yourself, the bulk of the income from forestry comes from value adding activities, standing trees are worth little, harvested and moved to roadside a little more, at the sawmill gate a little more again, the sawmill will approximately double the value of the timber, and the cabinet maker/Builder more than double it again. I had good success turning Larch thinnings into fenceposts on the farm before sale with some of the material from the thinning I did in 2017.

best of luck with the enterprise
tim

feargale

Mod, feel free to move this post if it is more appropriate to elsewhere. I was at a quiz before covid when a question was asked: what percentage of Ireland is agricultural land? Whatever answer was given, somebody objected that it should be more if forestry were included. On checking it seems neither the Dept of Agriculture nor Teagasc nor the Farmer's Journal count forestry as agricultural land. Why not?

blue5000

Teagasc are running a workshop later this month for those interested in getting into forestry;

https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/news/2021/forestry-workshops-2021.php

Registration required.

One More Toy

blue5000 wrote: »

Teagasc are running a workshop later this month for those interested in getting into forestry;

https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/news/2021/forestry-workshops-2021.php

Registration required.

Interesting, will there be recordings?

divillybit

Hi @One More Toy, just wondering if you ended up buying any bit of forestry.

Thought Id resurrect this thread as I'm thinking of buying an 7 acre plot of forest, planted back in the mid 90's, which has an asking price of about 35k. Its about 20 min drive from my house, good access as its next a national primary route. I like chainsaw work in my spare time and would be thinking a relatively small plantation like this would be a way of setting up a small firewood business. I wouldn't need to borrow money to buy this particular small plot.

Alternatively I also see a horticulture company not too far from me has alot (like a 1km length of it! Dtacked about 4 meters high) of low value timber stacked and was also thinking of asking would they deliver a lorry load of this kind of lengths of timber into the yard at home and I would cut them up and split them myself. Anyone have an idea of what an artic load of these would cost?

randombar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118796333#Comment_118796333

I'd like to buy a plot myself as I see the financial opportunities in it but realistically I'm not sure how sustainable a firewood business is these days, I'm guessing it would have to be very small scale or there would be investment required for kiln drying. Where did you find the woodland for sale out of interest?

timfromtang

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118797260#Comment_118797260

Jaysus Lads and Ladies, WTF WTF WTF!!!! GRRRRR!!

Do youse think that firewood or sawlogs is all a forest can produce?

Firewood and Pulp are the WORST LOWEST VALUE PRODUCTs FROM YOUR FOREST, selling your timber for firewood should be your last option of last resort.

Why do you think timber products are so expensive?

Lads who grow BEEF know chapter and verse about meat, animals markets etc etc The successful ones are skilled and knowlegeable

should those of us who grow timber not do the same?

Much of the financial yield from forestry comes from doing the work.

Seasoning timber requires time and skill not necessarily loads of investment.

Use your curiosity and imagination, read learn research....

get a sawmill

build furniture

grow fancy mushrooms in your forest

escort groups of "townies" on foraging walks

forestry is an excellent land use with many many possibilities and yields

right rant over

tim

randombar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118797749#Comment_118797749

Completely agree and I never said the opportunities I saw were in firewood. A lot of houses being built these days without chimneys, another 20 years will there be much demand for firewood at all?? I reckon you'd make a decent few bob selling ash etc. to saw mills, timber isn't exactly cheap at the moment.

divillybit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118797260#Comment_118797260

https://www.forestsales.ie/forests.php

This is the website I was looking at for forestry for sale. ⬆️

It was only areas smaller than 10 acres I was interested in that I could fell the tress myself and replant small sections at a time.

I think it would be a very sustainable business in fact, I've cut back substantially on my use of kerosene to heat my house, and using more timber. I guess I just want to secure my own supply of timber. Plus i find doing chainsaw work a great way to destress so managing my own small bit of forestry be a good side project.

accidental forester

Being a short distance is from your base is very important, only 20 minutes away will be a plus. If it's too far away, each trip there will become an major expedition. Being close by, you can pop over, do a few hours work without having to commit entire days.

Don't underestimate the equipment required to extract timber. In the beginning we were pulling out the odd smaller trees for firewood (with nothing but a pickup and a chainsaw) but were soon forced to deal with much bigger wind-thrown stems (in large numbers). Bigger timber means bigger equipment. Eventually you'll need something like a compact tractor and small trailer/crane if you plan to remove any substantial quantity of logs.

80 to 90% of what we extract goes to firewood, the rest goes to a local Woodmizer for planking. To heat a small, poorly insulated farmhouse, we go through about 20 cubic meters of seasoned Sitka and lodgepole per year. As long as it is split fresh and properly stacked it will season in 4 to 6 months (assuming some of that time is over the summer).

Working your own plantation is very satisfying and converting it over to Continuous Cover is an admirable long term goal. If you have the the time and the means, go for it!

Muahahaha

Just researching a small forestry (10-15 acres) investment at the moment. Are there any rules of thumb for valuing a planted forest, they are listed in acres but the amount of trees isnt specified. And is there market information available for what different species are achieving at a sawmill or is this something you can only find out by asking various mills?

Finally is there is a reason why it is rare to hear of walnut plantations in Ireland? Ive always understood it to be a high value species prized by furniture makers and it produces nuts from year 6 on or so. What are the factors that lead to sitka spruce being the tree of choice in Irish forestry over something more valuable like walnut?

Gloomtastic!

https://www.rte.ie/news/environment/2022/0512/1297636-forestry-ireland-latest/

Have you seen this article?