KEEP THE ASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When timber values are up, ash brings GOOD money! I had our timber logged 9 years ago. Only 16" at stump and above. Nothing smaller. No elm, hackberry, hickory, etc. cut. In several more years I will have it re-harvested and also take out many of those trees with the grade logs, not for timber value, but for a better overall grade of the hardwoods. I now know better about "high grading" and the bad long term effects.
Anyway, ash brought in A LOT of money! It was deceptively higher than most of our "high quality trees" (oaks, walnut, etc.). The thing is this....
The high value trees often produced 2nd or 3rd grade logs (some crooks, limbs, knots, etc.). That cut the seemingly high price way down due to the lower grade. The ash has a very high tendency to naturally grow tall and straight and the limbs normally drop off early on in the growth so you get longer, straighter logs with no knots or limbs to downgrade the "quality". At that time high grade walnut might have been $1.00-$1.50 a board ft. ($1,000-$1,500 per 1,000 board ft. or $/MBft.) and red and white oak $700-$800/MBft.
But very FEW were clean enough to bring that. Most averaged $400-$600/MBft. The average ash brought around $300/MBft. but a much HIGHER percentage of the ash was top grade and it all sold for $650-$680/MBft. The red oak averaged a much higher grade as well. The ash and red oak are just more genetically inclined to produce better grade log trees from my observations. So even a slightly lesser value tree can average a higher monetary yield because of a higher average "grade" log.
Most of our hardwood went to Norwalk Wood products in Cookeville and Lafayette Manufacturing, but ALL the clean ash went directly to Union Tools around Gordonsville or South Carthage area I believe (I think they made tool handles out of them for hammers and axes and such) and it brought the $680/MBft.
When it's good and clean you can't beat Cherry and Walnut. But getting big, straight knot free logs is not as common unless you religiously "farm" them for a few decades. But I would still leave ALL cherry and Walnut unless it's already dieing or crooked as all get out.
And like I say, that was 16" and up, except cedars. Today we still have a HEAVY wooded tract. It would have brought much more if we had clear cut it or really cut down to 10" stuff. But I wanted to maintain WOODS not a clear cut jungle. Also no pulp wood was sold. Few in this area cut hardwood pulp. Maybe nobody anymore.
Nine years ago we harvested 76 acres and MY share (approximately 50% on hardwoods and 40% on the cedar, since I had a logger do it not myself) brought in $25,008.01. I still got the file on it. Don't know what it would bring today though.
If I had done everything, it would have meant around $53,000 to me but MAN you gotta have some heavy equipment to start cutting, dragging, loading and hauling hundreds of big logs around.
They wouldn't fit in my S-10 I had at the time. :grin:
