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Observations and ?'s of MS trip #7619912
07/05/22 01:58 PM
07/05/22 01:58 PM
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NW MO
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TurkeyTime Offline OP
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Wife and I spent four full days traveling all through Mississippi. We traveled the whole state: South Haven to Pascagoula, Vicksburg to Columbus . Before some of you say I should have stopped by my wife definitely would not have approved stopping to chit chat with trapperman people on our anniversary trip. I had never been to LA, MS, or AL in my life. Observations and questions for MS folks and/or those in the know:

*MS people are the nicest people I have ever met. I have traveled though out the Midwest and West. Live in rural NW MO, The people in MS can't be beat. This is not from two encounters but four days worth of stores, restaurants, gas stations, random people, etc. Maybe I just had a four day lucky streak and didn't hang out in the cities much. The people were just really great.

*I like to drive 5-7 over the speed limit and don't usually get passed much. In MS 5 over won't cut it. Went 10 over and still got passed. Law enforcement didn't seem too concerned with 10-15 over as I know some of the people passing me were clocked.

*Part of the time we were around Ackerman/Louisville. Pine logging trucks all over the place. Is there much money to be made on the pine logs? Given planting, thinning, etc.

*In the Midwest small towns and rural areas are probably 95+% white. Not so in MS. I saw some Confederate flags around and wondered what the general attitude/feeling is towards it in MS?

* Not much random trash on the roads that I saw in cities or towns.


Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7619930
07/05/22 02:33 PM
07/05/22 02:33 PM
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williamsburg ks
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danny clifton Online content
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I cant answer how much money is being made but those logs are going to paper mills. Its pulp wood.


Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7619945
07/05/22 02:46 PM
07/05/22 02:46 PM
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 16,511
Oakland, MS
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I don't know about trash on the roads in the cities but there's tons of it in the country. Even though the county sheriff always has the inmates picking up trash on the side of the road, they just can't keep up with the slobs around here.

The confederate battle flag was incorporated into our state flag until about 2 years ago. In 2012, some people got enough signatures to put it onto the ballot for a vote on changing it. The people of MS voted overwhelmingly to keep the battle flag on the state flag. After Dylan Roof shot up that church of black folks some years back, there started to be renewed calls to remove it. The cowardly congress overrode the voice of the people and changed the flag without allowing the people to vote on it again, because they knew the people would vote to keep it. I still fly the old flag, as do most private individuals.

One of the strangest things to me when I moved here was the amount of black people in good paying jobs. You just didn't see that in IL or NY. There, if you saw black people working it would be in fast food or retail. Down here they're doctors, cops, lawyers, construction workers, teachers, etc. And people say the south is racist.

But yeah there are tons of black people in rural areas, and many of them love to hunt and fish too. Good folks! Another thing I've noticed down here is there tends to be white and black towns... a type of self segregation if you will. There will be some people of all races in all towns, but some are predominately white while others are predominantly black.

Careful going more than 10mph over the limit. I got nabbed a couple months ago and my fine was $250.


~~Proud Ultra MAGA~~
Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: danny clifton] #7619963
07/05/22 03:05 PM
07/05/22 03:05 PM
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Georgia
warrior Offline
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Georgia
Originally Posted by danny clifton
I cant answer how much money is being made but those logs are going to paper mills. Its pulp wood.



Nope, not all of it just the first thinning. Eight inch dbh and up goes into chip and saw.

Pulp is almost given away just to get it thinned. There hasn't been money in pulp in decades. The real money has always been in pole timber but that's 30 years minimum for small poles. Saw timber is taking a real hit these days with so much engineered lumber on the market.

As for lots of money in timber? Depends on your time frame. Definitely not overnight but my father will have gone from being born in a four room around a double fireplace cottage on a 270 acre dirt farm to dying a multimillionaire in his 80+ years and that's with three different businesses going under for him. So think of timber as a lifetime investment that beats the stock market average most years.

Undoubtedly most of the logs you saw came off family owned trust lands or corporate owned.


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Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7619967
07/05/22 03:10 PM
07/05/22 03:10 PM
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Posts: 25,423
Georgia
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Georgia
Without pine much of that dirt would be just about worthless


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Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7619997
07/05/22 03:49 PM
07/05/22 03:49 PM
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SW Georgia
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Wanna Be Offline
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Wow. I need to tell these “pine farmers” their pines are nothing but pulp wood. They’d probably have to sell their plantations if they find out. Guess those rings don’t hold true for years in pines either. Hate to know that 50-80 year old pines go to pulp.
I’ve hunted Mississippi quite a bit and like most of the South, people are generally nice and hospitable. And if you ignore what you see on TV, most races get along with one another. I know of some high class operations that host quail and rabbit hunting and care less what race you are, just as long as those dogs can hunt. You’d be surprised what you’d find out on these “bad plantations” lol. Several have folks that were born there now live in the nicest houses and make the highest wages. Guess the owners need to cloak themselves going in and out of these houses for dinners and suppers. Wouldn’t want the word to get out about the real South. Not to mention the fact at one particular plantation the oldest man there has raised 3 sons who also “worked” the plantation as kids and went on to be a Doctor,a Lawyer, and a Major in the AF. And that individual has a lifetime payment even when he retires, lol.
Don’t get me wrong we have our share of trash too, that includes all races. But for the most part, we all get along and enjoy each other’s company. I’ll trade deer and coons for corn and beans any day of the week!

Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620008
07/05/22 04:05 PM
07/05/22 04:05 PM
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williamsburg ks
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danny clifton Online content
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Okay. But last time i was down there pulp trucks were everywhere


Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620052
07/05/22 05:12 PM
07/05/22 05:12 PM
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 25,423
Georgia
warrior Offline
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Georgia
Alright let me walk you through a 40 year rotation as that's what the bulk of ours is now. I'll also toss in some history.

Starting from dirt/clearcut/old fields.

Site prep may include pushing up slash (limbs and tops) into windrows or burning or herbicide if old field or hardwood stumps.

Most sites are hand planted bare root improved loblolly by dibble bar, only the flattest and cleanest make tractor work feasible. Loblolly on most sites are planted on an 8'x8' to 8'x12', we do 8'x8'. Much of this will depend on the site index or the grade of soil type/fertility which determines how well they grow and how much competition can be handled.

Depending on site and management an overflight application of fertilizer or herbicide by helicopter may or may not be done within the first few years of planting.

Canopy will close by year five and it will be thick but from that point the floor is being shaded.

Year 10-12 will be the first scheduled thinning. Height will be 20'-30' with a dbh of 3"-6" inches. All of this will be sold as pulp. Thinning will be every other row both ways or more likely every third or forth row. This all goes into pulp sold by the ton.

I well recall when it was sold by the cord, hauled on short trucks in 4' or 8' bolts and cut with bow saws (not the manual one but the chainsaw with a round bar with a big hole in the middle) and loaded by hand. I remember dad getting $12 a cord back in seventies. Now we're lucky to get that for a ton. Do the math and that's about half.
Difference, we don't use paper sacks, cardboard or printer paper like we used to.

Again herbicide or fertilizer may be applied. Fire can be used as well. Most use fire on 3-5 year rotation. We don't, daddy's rules.

By year 15 you should see them hit the 8" chip and saw size. Chip and saw is OSB. Sometime around year 20 you'll do a chip and saw cut and this one will make or break your final cut. Anything catfaced, broken or split, overshaded or bent must come out. This is your cull cut. Expect your best stuff to have reached small saw log, 12"dbh. But leave the best standing properly spaced per acre.

BTW the way timing is a little bit variable with the most important timing being the first thinning cut. To early you get hardwood completion, to late and the pine stunts. The right time is when they start self pruning.

From year 25 on you are watching the markets and hoping to see your price and hoping not to see beetles, tornadoes or hurricanes.

By year 30 you are entering pole timber size and need to make the call, sell it all and replant or go for poles. Most have sold by now.

Year forty to fifty is pole timber and top dollar but some of the greatest risk as loblolly starts dying past 50 as it's a relatively short lived colonizer species rarely going past 75.

Slash, Longleaf, Shortleaf all have different timelines specific to their life cycles. We have planted some longleaf on sites they are suited to it as well as some native shortleaf and spruce pine.

As for volume your first cuttings are high volume, last cutting high quality.

Sometime in the next ten years the bulk of ours will be rinse cycle repeat. And my children will see the poles from that.


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Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620053
07/05/22 05:13 PM
07/05/22 05:13 PM
Joined: Aug 2014
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McCurtain Co. Oklahoma
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Really nice folks in MS and really all through the US. Stay away from the big cities and large tourist areas and you will find friendly, courteous people everywhere.
There is certainly money in timber but it is a long term investment with relatively small margins. Like any other business you have to watch your costs and know what treatments will generate positive NPV. Most people have no idea the pretty pine stands they drive past on the highway are tree farms. They look at them as forests instead of farms.
I drove through MS recently also and was impressed with all the roadside vegetable stands along the highway.

Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620151
07/05/22 07:43 PM
07/05/22 07:43 PM
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Posts: 529
NE Mississippi
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Glad you enjoyed your trip! As far as speeding goes, maybe because we have a state trooper shortage. As far as black/white, the flag etc, yes we pretty much keep to our own, but we're not as combative as the stereotypes paint us to be. We just stay in our lanes.


For by grace are you saved by faith, and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620173
07/05/22 08:11 PM
07/05/22 08:11 PM
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middle tennessee
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Tommie Offline
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We just passed through there this weekend on the way to carencro Louisiana, y’all have some the roughest interstates I’ve ever be on please get them fixed before I come back down that way around the end of August .

Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: Tommie] #7620186
07/05/22 08:27 PM
07/05/22 08:27 PM
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Georgia
warrior Offline
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warrior  Offline
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Georgia
Originally Posted by Tommie
We just passed through there this weekend on the way to carencro Louisiana, y’all have some the roughest interstates I’ve ever be on please get them fixed before I come back down that way around the end of August .


They've had washboard highways for as long as I can remember. That's just Mississippi.


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Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620191
07/05/22 08:29 PM
07/05/22 08:29 PM
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Oklahoma
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I used to work for the paper mill south of Columbus and a lot of the wood I bought came out of the Ackerman area. Let me assure you there is nothing in it for the landowners, about all they get out of a thinning is getting rid of it. If they are lucky and close to the mill they might get $2-$4/ton. But you gotta thin to get logs in any kind of reasonable time and for stand health.
Also, in that area most all the 1st thin wood has to go to the Columbus mill, and unless things have changed they won’t knowingly buy wood less than 16 yoa. That’s a fluff pulp mill and specific density of the wood matters for that product. Also in the area of Ackerman/Columbus/Starkville a whole lot of the trucks you saw were probably Weyerhaeuser contract trucks, they own about half of east central MS lol
There is no OSB mill until you get up a little north of Tupelo so not much of the wood around there is getting cut for that.
Mississippi is blessed with great pine timber, but unfortunately there’s an over supply of it. Several new sawmill have come on line there recently, which should have helped the saw timber market but even then it’ll most likely need to be 10-12” butt size at minimum. And sawmills are a curse for pine pulpwood prices in that area cause all those sawmills generate lots of chips…..that have to go to Columbus. If you get a bunch of chips you don’t need round wood….


Previously Bridger158, before the great "Time Out".

Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620206
07/05/22 08:50 PM
07/05/22 08:50 PM
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Georgia
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You ain't lying on over supply. In my lifetime I've seen thousands of acres of cotton and pasture go over to pine. They thought Granddad was nuts planting pine trees in the corn fields in 1954 but by the eighties everyone one was. Even my row cropping cousins in north Alabama went over to pine.

What product is it where density matters? We're being told that the fast growing improved plantation pine is started to get docked at the mills. That field pine does better.


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Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620226
07/05/22 09:05 PM
07/05/22 09:05 PM
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NW MO
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Tommie I actually thought the roads in general were nice and smooth. Don't come to MO if you think those roads were rough.

Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620232
07/05/22 09:13 PM
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I meant to say specific gravity not specific density but basically the same thing I guess. That mill makes exclusively fluff pulp for paper towels, toilet paper, feminine products, and diapers.


Previously Bridger158, before the great "Time Out".

Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620246
07/05/22 09:28 PM
07/05/22 09:28 PM
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Georgia
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K, thanks.

I try to stay up to date on market trends so dad and I can spit ball just who knows what might be in demand 30 years from now, lol.

The longleaf we've planted is one of those 30 plus year gambles. It's a better tree for lumber and pole but takes half again or longer to get there. By that time we'll probably be all plastic.

Dad's half convinced the next big planting should be a mix of pine and gum. Told him I'd shoot the guy who plants gum. But hardwood pulp has brought more than pine in the past few cuttings so who knows.


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Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: warrior] #7620281
07/05/22 09:59 PM
07/05/22 09:59 PM
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Originally Posted by warrior
You ain't lying on over supply. In my lifetime I've seen thousands of acres of cotton and pasture go over to pine. They thought Granddad was nuts planting pine trees in the corn fields in 1954 but by the eighties everyone one was. Even my row cropping cousins in north Alabama went over to pine.

What product is it where density matters? We're being told that the fast growing improved plantation pine is started to get docked at the mills. That field pine does better.

I’m seeing farm acreage covert to pecan orchards. Even one of the plantation owners has bought up a ton of land just for pecans. Apparently that’s the new “cash” crop for the future. Actually a lot of plantations have a large amount of acreage for pecan trees.

Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620292
07/05/22 10:10 PM
07/05/22 10:10 PM
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Georgia
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Yup, same up here to a degree.

I looked into it but the costs and labor of fighting scab and aphids makes spraying cotton look like nothing. And then there's shakers and sweepers.


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Re: Observations and ?'s of MS trip [Re: TurkeyTime] #7620294
07/05/22 10:11 PM
07/05/22 10:11 PM
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NW MO
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TurkeyTime Offline OP
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So when you are talking about plantations and a ton of land what kind of size are you talking about? What size would be considered a plantation versus average land owner?

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