Treeconomics

[donnk]

Was having a mull over our new wood, and got me to thinking how people make a wage from a very slow growing product.

 

How does it work exactly, a acre of trees would return £x per year after x years of producing zero as the wood matures. What is X ?

 

Sawmills - is it the good old 4x2 us builders use that it the bread and butter of these operations ? we only use set lengths so must mean a lot of trees not big enough are scrapped ?

 

The biomass heaters look like a good emerging market for chip, I was watching an old WW2 documentary the other day and one of the jap tortures was to stake a poor sod out over the top of a bamboo plant as they grew like an inch a day or something. Wouldn't this be just the job for never ending supply of chip ?

 

In the building game the landowner generally makes the best wedge, is this the same with trees ?

[Mick Dempsey]

I have no idea but would be interested to know.

People plant poplars here on poor boggy ground then wait 30 years or so and harvest them.

I often wonder about the mathematics of it.

[Gary Prentice]

I doubt if there is any one single answer. Any answer is likely to be based on what the crop is, what's already there to start with, the acreage, other incomes such as carbon sequestration - the list goes on.

 

I think I read that willow grown for biomass can be harvested within 3-5 years and then every few years thereafter. (Maybe even annually, I can't remember) On the other hand, commercial forestry would wait 40-50+ years before harvesting.

 

I was reading National Geographics Redwood article yesterday, which provides a good explanation of some of the different ways those forests can be managed.

 

Reading some of 'The Village Idiots' posts is quite enlightening on some other methods of deriving income from woodlands on a smaller scale.

[drinksloe]

Must admit i'll be intrested in some of the post's too.

I really struggle to get my head round it locally as since the big boimass power plant has went in doesnae make a lot of sense and relying in gov subsidies to push timber prices up.

And even it is not very well thought out compared to the scandinvinians where the idea came from

 

Althou i think lot of the commercail sof wood job seems to be massive differences in the way different companies approach it. Some companies esp nowadays put a lot of quite decent timber intot he local burning plant (which was originally only going to be burning waste, and by product and brash and locally grown willow)

Almost all the farmers have ripped the willow out now, generally topped after 1st year to make it coppice then harvested every 3-5 years, to make money it will need to be 3 yrs so better ground.

Whereas other timber companies having the harvesters cut 13 sizes on jobs with poor wood, just a nightmare for forwarder/harvester drivers

 

1 of the things i struggle to unerstand is in my area sw scotland timber quality tends to be poor as trees growing too fast so all knotty yet the new strind of trees can be harvested on an even shorter rotation

 

Also where all the jobs went? even just 30 yrs ago they're usd to be loads of manual work and plenty of men, now local FC hardly employs any actual workers.

[timbernut]

A smallish harvester can do the work of 6+ men

[timbernut]

Not a stroke one though

[drinksloe]

Aye i know mechanisation is the main reason but the ammount of jobs that no longer exist is massive (or possibly FC were just grossly overstaffed)

 

I've just bought an old FC office/yard and used to be 30 men worked here and owned 10 workers houses even in the 80's, and this was a small satelite office with plenty other similar ones all over the district. Used to be FC fountains, EFC mini buses ferrying boys ll over when i was a lad never mind all the SE cutters

 

If a tree fell over in the main office car park they'd haver to get subbies in to cut it up to get home now, plenty bodies but all shirt and tie.

Found some old records looked like they used to thin trees every 5 years, now be lucky if trees are inspected eery 5 years

[matelot]

I think the main thing that drives forestry investment is that rich people buy it to avoid their estate paying inheritance tax..... This means the returns aren't particulary good...

 

I remember circa 20 years ago a neighbour harvesting trees and he said the money he got would just cover the cost of replanting. Having said that my dad bought some forestry in 1998 then in 2010 he sold some standing timber for twice what he bought it for (I think he got lucky with exchange rate movements and the start of biomass).

 

Sitka Spruce produces circa 15 cubic metres per hectare per year (yield class). At circa 45 years it's at the optimum diameter (too old/ wide and the value goes down). The top of tree goes for fencing/ chip/ pallets. The bottom of the tree goes for saw logs. From memory the landowner might get circa £3 a m3 for the small diameter stuff to £12 per m3 for sawlogs.

 

So after 45 years a hectare of Sitka will be worth circa £7000 per hectare (this will obvioulsy vary depending on timber quality and distance to sawmills).

[donnk]

inheritance tax is an intersesting one, farms are exempt from it.

 

One of the reasons I'm in the process of buying one...