Forester experience

Has anyone had any experience using a forester - is it worth getting one to sell timber? What percentage do they get? Have some wooded property that we are thinking of select cutting. Thanks.

Don't know we're u are in wpa but most of your big logging companies with there own mills have foresters on staff , u can discuss a plan with them on harvest duration and what and when to cut, but always get a couple of bids we use one particular company and I'm in western pa

educate yourself on "high Grading" before any logging by mill Foresters or any Forester for that matter.
But if all you care about is the money then never mind.

Thanks- property is in Forest County, PA

Call DCNR's Bureau of Forestry for free advice from a person who doesn't stand to gain financially from your decision

Dirty D is correct, never use a mill's forester, too much of a conflict of interest. NEVER sell timber without a forester, try to find one that works by the hour for marking/scaling and then inspection during harvest and close out for the bond. Yes, require a bond so all the work is completed to the forester and your satisfaction.

I worked as a Consultant Forester for the last 25 years. Hire a private Consultant Forester to work for you, and tell them what your goals are.
The big lumber mill foresters work for the mill and not the landowner. Most Consultants in northern NY charge 15% if they set up a competitive bid timber sale.

Squash’s family has been in the timber business a looong time, that’s good advice, each timber species has a financial maturity, You should consider your age and the long term goals for the property in your decision.

always remember that MANAGING timber is much more involved than just
Selling it. Foresters have the knowledge/experience to do both.

Very good advice here. I've nothing to add except to tell of a horror story where my brother had some "selective" logging done on 160 acres in northern BC. He walked the acreage with a logger/forester, identified what he wanted to have done....and when he came back after the logging it was a wholesale clearcut with just a few wispy trees left, which to my brother's thinking ruined the land. He ended up selling it and was heartbroken.

He did make a lot of money though from the mill.

If you are in Western PA give the guys at Generations Forestry a call. It's a good family owned business.

Respectfully disagree. Mill foresters can be great assets for the timberland owner. However in this situation the advice not to rely upon one for the entirety of the sale of a harvest is correct. You need either a disinterested third party or sellers agent to perform the cruise and bid plus to be on board through completion of contract to ensure its done properly.
Where a mill forestor can be of help is in the planning stages of planting, management and preparation to harvest as mill foresters, LOCAL MILLS, will know and understand local markets and demand as well as tree species and soils. It may also get you some access to his or her assets such as planting crews, seedling stock, and other services as many mills are now offering services to landowners.
Timber is a multi year process and networking with buyers years in advance whether you eventually sell to them or not is only good business practice.

We have a working relationship with Scotch Timber for ours in a consulting arrangement.

But like all things business if you ain't got a clue its best to hire it done and caveat emptor applies.

Trappers have had great posts on this in the past.
I vote hire independent, BUT, listen to these guys.

If any of you folks are around an active cut or ready in near future.
And selling log truck loads of tops and culls for firewood.
PM me I may snag one if decent.

I got beat up by white fir last year and my wood pile suffered.

...never use a mill's forester, too much of a conflict of interest. NEVER sell timber without a forester, try to find one that works by the hour for marking/scaling and then inspection during harvest and close out for the bond. Yes, require a bond so all the work is completed to the forester and your satisfaction.

Hire a private Consultant Forester to work for you, and tell them what your goals are.
The big lumber mill foresters work for the mill and not the landowner. Most Consultants in northern NY charge 15% if they set up a competitive bid timber sale.


2X

Hope you like to cut firewood. My experience was a nightmare of tops left lying everywhere. A once beautiful woods turned into a brush pile you can’t see 25 yards thru.

top disposal should have been addressed in the contract.

This comment is exactly why I stated you need to decide what your goals for the property are. Tops remaining on the ground can and are good forestry. As they rot they regenerate the soil and also they protect young hardwood regeneration from over browsing by deer. If you are a deer hunter, remember if you can see more than 60 yards through your forest, it is poor deer habitat. Most hardwood tops decay in 5-7 years. If you want a park like forest , then hire a logger with a whole tree chipper and chip the tops, but there is a down size to that harvest as well.

My experience has been most landowners talk about wanting sustainable forestry practices on their land , but once the money starts flowing many forget about good management.

I am going to suggest you start out with your local extension service forester. Walk the land with him/her and discuss what you want to do both short and long term. Listen to that advice, and carefully consider all the options presented. Also remember that some loggers do a better overall job than others.

Yup, managing forestland is never one and done or just showing up to cash the check. It's farming without the annual deadlines over generational spans.
The slash left behind can be just as important anything else. Ours will wash in a heartbeat if the ground isn't protected and we got the evidence to prove it. The big cut that took the old growth longleaf back around 1880 left washes you could drop a house into. That's probably our biggest trouble area today getting equipment safely into some areas and keeping the washes stable and not growing. The plain fact is that there's some trees we just can't harvest as there's no way to safely snake them out of the holes they are in.
The big cut we did in 1980 had the slash pushed and windrowed across the slopes to hold the soil. Some of those windrows were 6'-8' tall. Evidence of them can still be seen on aerial photos today.

A consulting forester gets paid a percentage of the sale price. I have cruised timber for several foresters and consulting foresters got the most money. You pay a percentage of the sale but you will get more.

25 years ago I developed a trusting relationship with a forester/log buyer employed by a large west coast timber buyer. Probably not a company any of you have heard of though.
I generally know what the log markets are now. When I offer this company a timber sale, I take what they offer because I know I won't do better elsewhere. On the other hand if they know there is a better market somewhere else for the type of timber I am offering, they will tell me. It is great if you can develope a relationship like this. However, I warn you, never double cross them or try to go behind their back and shop their price around. Everyone in the industry knows each other. Your name will be ruined.

Why would looking at competitors to get the best price for your resource ruin your name.
Thats called doing buisness.
When I sell my castoreum I dont always sell it to the same people.I sell it where I get the best price.

Same goes for a buyer.When I sell fur to clients I wont consider their name ruined if they decide to get product from someone else who may offer it cheaper from time to time.

Yup, the guy that cut ours for years back when was a single truck cutter grew big enough to wrap up almost all the dealerships for Alabama River. Well he got to big for his britches and when Alabama River called looking for their timber to find it sitting on his lot waiting for a better price they went around him and put him out of business. Cost the guy his marriage as well. The feds came sniffing around on some political stuff. Surprised he didn't eat his gun over it.
But he survived, learned some humility and started over. He does much better work now.

As mentioned by others
the first thing you should do is think of what you want from your land.

If you use the place for deer hunting as an example then you should possibly also get advise from a wildlife biologist and see what he would advise cutting to maximize deer habitat.
Once that's done you should be able to see some overlap on what is best for both scenarios.

I say this cause I have seen many woods logged with a so called "selective cut". Sometimes they will remove just the most valuable stuff leaving everything else "high grading".
What should happen is less desirable species, trees of poor form and trees that are hindering growth of desirable high value trees should be removed too. Usually these trees are of little value so most don't want to waste their time on it.
But to maximize your value long term it needs to be done.
Now the balancing act is if you want anything else out of your wood lot like wildlife habitat. In that case you might want to leave some larger poor quality trees that are serving as den trees for squirrels, coons or other stuff.
Leave the tops where they fall, good wildlife habitat.
Look into how much damage to remaining trees will happen. Damage can effect the future value of existing trees. I have seen some places that you can tell 20 years after it was logged where the logging roads were by the scars on the trunks of the trees.

this is the reason why you need to give serious thought on what you want out of the place.

As a large timber buyer, mill operator with a on staff forester. We buy large federal cuts along with many smaller private cuts. 9 out of 10 times private landowners through friendly advice from others only see the few high quality trees they have, and total cut expectations are based on that. The terrain, access, distance to class A roads, distance to mills are all a factor. I have seen very high grade timber in a terrible location go cheap, as it should. I have seen large tracts of lower grade timber within site of great roads go for higher price. Get several bids on the timber. Then get re bids by buyers. Reason, things change. A buyer will up a bid often, when a crew is close or winding down a cut nearby. The landowners that get skinned are the ones hurting for cash and want the trees cut yesterday. I upstanding logger and support company will be months, or in our case a year ahead on contracts.

diameter-limit cuts in eastern hardwoods are often (VERY often!) harmful to future timber quality.

they don't take into account residual tree quality (those left standing for the next cut), nor spacing.

Yup, we've gone to marking trees. More work up front better results down the road.

Lots of good advice here. Whatever you do, don’t let a logger talk you out of hiring a forester to save you money. A lot of loggers will try to do that. Typically a reputable forester can get you a premium for your timber that will be more than enough to pay his/her commission. They will also know which loggers in the area are trustworthy and will do you a good job. The mill foresters are a crap shoot, I’ve worked with some really good ones who helped the land owner and I’ve worked with some who were only thinking about the next tract of timber they were wanting to buy.

I started by generating a Forest Management Plan through the USDA/NRCS, they often pay for or cost share with the owner, you can reference CAP-Forest Management Plan 106. This is an inventory of your timber stands created by a technical service provider that is typically an independent forester. I preferred this approach, in lieu of working with DNR programs, with the NRCS- it’s your stewardship plan and you employ whatever methods you decide and when. The plan is developed around your goals, for us it was solely wildlife enhancement, followed by economic returns. This is the time to create buck bedding areas, funnels between food plots, ag fields, handle invasives, replant beneficial trees and browse, etc.
The plan is comprehensive and looks at your property in its entirety, I wanted to make sure we had different age classes of timber. Not all loggers are foresters and not all foresters are loggers. A good forester will mark trees and work with the logger to manage the forest environment for all its potential and resources.
It’s hard to wrap your head around the first clear-cut, by nature, a clear-cut represents devastation and destruction to the current timber stand for regeneration of young forest growth. Our Aspen clear-cuts look like a tornado went through our timber stands but they regenerate quickly and offer the highest nutritional browse available.
In my opinion, what’s left in the woods is more important than what’s on the logging truck. My approach was to utilize:
1) Technical Service Provider to generate Forest Management Plan
2) Forester to review the plan, mark trees and be the liaison to the logger
3) Logger- selected someone that was local, had good references, understands infrastructure of road integrity, landing areas etc.

You bring up good points. One of the issues we struggle with is tract size. Things have gone go big or go home these days. It costs cutters big money to haul the feller bunchers and skidded half way across the county and get set up for a cut. If you ain't got enough timber/land to keep them busy and not hauling equipment don't expect them to jump on it.
Ours is only 270 and we manage for a mixed inventory stand preferring smaller cuts every few years as opposed to the all at once big cut short rotation. But our hole card is high ground on the main high ridge of a county bordered by two major rivers that flood every spring putting large parts of the county inaccessible to logging for a month or more. It also has hard top county road frontage down one side, good solid internal road network tailored over the years to get trucks in or out and centrally located between three mills, within 20 miles.

Wouldnt that trees offspring be in the ground or a sapling nearby?

Possible. But what he's referring to is a thinning cut sometimes called a shelter wood cut where you are taking our half or less of a stand leaving half or more of the canopy remaining. Ideally to be removed at a future harvest in a similar manner.

If you take out the best on the initial your left with culls that will never maximize your return. You've got to balance out cuts by always removing stuff, crooked/knotty/broken/hollow/etc, that will never make saleable timber on every cut then selecting based on spacing not necessarily quality. It's a balancing act of maximizing return on this cut vs the next cut. You most certainly can pocket all the money now but your grandkids may hate you for it years down the road.

"If you take out the best on the initial your left with culls that will never maximize your return" - He was referring to a diameter limit (not best) and I can tell you I did a salvage job on 16" and up and what was left will be premiere wood in the future. What I took was all rubbed from prior skidding, some rot, short for some reason, with a lot of busted out tops.

Great advice.

Diameter without other criteria for your cutter/buyer will end up high graded. Diameter is just the starting point.

I reference to my earlier post about establishing a long tern relationship with a log buyer:

Just like many industries, there may be several players at the bottom, but the ultimate market is limited to just a few big players, and they all are pretty much working with the same financial figures. Castor for example; the end market for 99% of castor is most likely controlled by just a few players who are all paying about the same price.

Once you establish a good relationship with one of the big players in any commodity there is no reason to keep shopping around for a better price. The worst thing you can do is get a price from one potential buyer, then call another buyer and say "company X offered me X for my coon/castor/logs, what will you give me"? Of course it's easy for them to offer a nickel more, but that isn't fair to the first offer, and that nickel more that you receive will usually be lost somewhere else in the transaction anyway.

Once you establish a trusting relationship, it makes it easier for the outfit you are working with to deal with you, they know they aren't wasting their time working up quotes for you only to have you shop them around. It just makes things flow better and more economically for all parties involved. The generally results in better financial returns in the end.

That hasnt been my experience.
I always shop my castor around for the best price and have done well.
If someone gets butthurt over it-tough bannannas.Like I said-its just good buisness to get a better price.
it is no different than contracting out work,except there are more variables and more homework-but in the end you pick the one you want that will do the best job for the best price.
it is just good buisness.
There is plenty of people who own land here who sell wood fibre to contractors,and there are several contractors who compete for that fibre.

I'll second this as a business person myself.

If you're just wanting comparison quotes be up front with it. Don't play games or blow smoke. State clearly what you're wanting and you'll get a respectful response. Jerk a guy around and you'll get a similar response.

Remember there's more of us out here doing this daily and will be for years to come and contrary to popular perception most of us talk to each other.

And the above advice was given in light of a friendly established relationship. Treat the guy like a friend, if there's a problem ask first before breaking the relationship.

There very well may be times you can find a better deal or your friend is just plain wrong. Do what you have to do but by all means do your best not to earn a bad rep.

In the timber biz it ain't like you can pack up your trees and sell them somewhere else, they won't fit in a flat rate box. Nor are there mills on every street corner or new ones popping up every year.

I guess it all goes to what folks are trying to say on this thread. Knowledge and knowing your stuff is the best way to get the best deal all the way around.

Barring that hire the guy that does know his stuff.

Diameter was the only criteria, the good the bad and the ugly.

We learned the hard way on that. Once told a cutter to take the stuff above xx" but to leave us XX per acre on a ten acre patch of regrowth water oak.

Nothing above xx was left and the XX left standing was the scrub in the corners all bunched up.

Needless to say he ain't been back and trees are now marked.

We ended having to clean that mess up ourselves poison the stump and went back with longleaf.

Take away lesson, PUT IT IN WRITING.

Always have a iron clad contract and make purchaser post a performance bond.

it is RARE that a mill contract will offer a performance bond, if it's not required by a landowner (or their forester agent).

"trust us" seems to be the order of their day.

another common ploy to avoid like the Plague is the 50/50 contract.

Thanks to all of you for the great advice. We really would rather not timber the property (we like the woods as they are) but have been told that we should before the trees get wind whipped and lose their value. I’ve never heard of this before- is this a real thing that happens to trees?

Never heard that term before. But out this way you can get "ring shake". It only happens on certain sites, but it causes ring separation which results in the lumber literally falling apart when it is milled into lumber. It is a real thing, but I don't know anything about the species of trees you are dealing with or your conditions, but it sounds like something similar.

One local logger told a neighbor their trees had aurora borealis and needed to be removed!

In the northeast, a performance bond is standard procedure, anyone who allows a logger to work on their property without a performance bond , proof of liability and workers comp. Ins.,. Is asking for a nightmare.

This is the crew I would go with.

They way folks speak of loggers here, one would think 99% are nothing but tree pirates. When it is exactly the opposite, -7F today and I have a man on the high seat unloading a tandem as I type. If you're in a timber area, it's not hard to ask around to other landowners, and find a crew that can do what you want. It's amazing that landowners don't realize cutting on a 25 acre patch still requires a 3-5 acre clear landing minimum. There will be turn trees that get barked up to turn corners. Smaller cuts won't support the costs to place clean cut equipment, tree harvesters are high dollar machines, if they're not several hundred acre plots, they're on a lowboy, and that cost money. Smaller cuts require smaller machines and different cut methods to be profitable. It is done everyday, look into a smaller crew, with horses even. We have a well respected local using horses that is booked a year or so out.

I certainly didn't imply that all loggers are crooks. but they have their interests; and the landowners have theirs.

mill foresters are paid to look after the mill's interests.

consulting foresters are paid to look after the landowner's interests.

it's really that simple.

Forest and wildlife management demos are a hit at the trapper get togethers.
Hint

X 2, I agree most today’s loggers are professionals and will have all appropriate ins. And post bond.

and the big problem with making a mistake in MANAGING your woodlot; is that you (or your children/grandchildren) will PAY for that mistake for a LONG time.

educate yourself (your forester will help you!); choose your goals wisely; and LISTEN to your forester. understand that most times, you won't get to have your cake and eat it, too. you can't get every nickel out of your woodlot now and expect to have another commercial sale in 15 years. some of your goals may conflict with other goals. you're paying a forester to balance and [hopefully] achieve what you desire.

Another horror story. Neighbor wanted to sell some oak and I offered to scale and put a sale together for them Pro Bono. They kindly refused and said they had a friend who was a logger and they "trusted him". Long story short, they went to Florida for 3 weeks in February and the trusted logger worked dawn to dusk for the 3 weeks and slicked everything off the lot and they never saw a dime.

Wow.

Truth. More than I expected.

One other thing I've seen as an issue, property lines.

I've seen loggers charged with timber theft because the "landowner" said the line is here because grandpa said so. I saw one family gain a windfall because what they thought was the line wasn't and that strip of big stuff the neighbor never touched was actually theirs.

And there is "line trees" that shouldn't be touched for many reasons not just disputed ownership.

I did a salvage job once on a 50/50 and the landowners high bid was beat by 12 times. Nobody wanted to touch it. I did everything he wanted and we both did well.

happy for you both. seriously.

I stand by my advice...too many steps where things can go off the rail.