Tornado just destroyed our Woods

A tornado just took half the trees down from our farm woods. A select cut logging was done 4-5 years ago, which took the larger trees.

1. What is the best thing to do with the downed trees, for the best profit?

2. Is there something better than firewood?

3. What is the best way to find an honest logger?

4. Are wood pellets an option worth considering, to make use of the most product?

Thank you in advance,
Farm Family

Fence Posts; Maybe? Really hate to hear it! Guess Your all right though?

Scotty

Twisted wood, hard to do much with it but forewood. Depends if it's hardwood or softwood, you really didn't give many details on location or type.

Glad to assume everyone is alright, as devistating as having the grove demolished, alot of folks have it a lot worse this year.

--->Paul

pulpwood market is going strong right now; your best bet. Firewood mkt is practically zero. It's everywhere & they are covered up with firewood. If it's like here, its happened to everyone else too, so the market, if any, is flooded for all products. Now its the loggers choice; he has his pick of places, you have to dump it in a hurry. First ones to sell their wood get the best loggers & deals; for everyone else, the longer they wait , the worse terms they get. All your choice logs are gone, so you have few options. Speed is essential, take something in the first week or count on your trees as fertilizer. Harsh terms but this is the reality.

Dont get a logger to trample your land.

How much acreage has downed trees?
Do you live in a harsh winter climate?
Do you have a wood burner?

If it were me being in Michigan then I would cut it up for firewood. Firewood sells quickly if it is a priced cheaply, like $25 per pickup truck load.

Why don't you contact a lumber broker? I did when I sold my timber and the price I recieved was about twice what the local loggers were offering. A broker will also know where best to sell it.
Couple of options
1: If there is a chipper around and you can get the wood clean (no bark, no dirt and no leaves) paper mills pay more and it will clean up everything.
2: Firewood -- in the city about christmas.

He'd be money ahead to let it rot in the woods than cut and sell it for $25 a pickup load

Contact your DNR, they should have references for forest management.

Sorry to hear about your woods. We had a tornado/microburst/whatever that wrecked an area on our place a few years ago. Like some of the other posters said, it was pretty well reduced to firewood, and not very good firewood at that. It's hard to deal with 20' long splinters. We picked through, got the best and left the rest. 31 years have passed and the woods has healed.

Paul

MY choice would be firewood,if the best were logged off 4-5 years ago. problem is if it got you it probably also got you neighbors ,and they will be cutting wood also so you probably wont make any profit.Very best way would be to sell it to the insurance company if possible!I was up till midnight last night burning our first stack of debris,so I feel for you.if you find a way to make a profit off them ,lots of folks would like to know how!

3. What is the best way to find an honest logger?

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There's got to be a few out there. I've never met one. My dad has 40 acres of woods, and every time when having a few older trees cut out always had loggers that stole or tried to steal more trees, and damaged countless others. He bought a Wood-Mizer sawmill and never let a logger in again. He can use most of the lumber on the farm, though.

We had a tornado very close by in 2001. It was a F-2 or F-3. In the same storm we had alot of straight-line winds, too. Suddenly everybody and their mother from every adjoining state were timber buyers. They hung around for about 2-3 weeks, and after that, didn't want any more storm-damaged timber. Some woods that were hit were completely destroyed, some had some salvagable logs. The ones that were hit the worst, not even the firewood would be usable.

From what I've seen, unless they can get them for next to nothing, or you have some exceptional old-growth trees down, loggers aren't going to line up and fight for storm damaged trees, even if they look like the storm didn't hurt them. Those that are partially or totally laid over can be dangerous to cut off the stump/cut to length. They can do all kinds of strange things. Many are found to be bad when sawed into at the mill from the twisting/bending of the tree. We had a nice white oak "explode" on the bandmill that a tornado took down. When sawing the third side trying to get down to a cant, the log relieved itself and split apart about seventeen ways.

If you have insurance, now's the time to make a claim. If you clean this up yourself, be careful. If you get a logger, make sure he/she is at least insured. Get a contract before they make the first cut. If you ever only want certain trees to be cut, mark those yourself.

Sorry about your woods. I hope everyone made it through the storm ok.

AG

you've got an interesting set of questions here. Good thing you didn't have a fire, the insurance investigator and police would be keeping an eye on you. #1. you already had a dividend, you are still alive. #2. If you are in an area where heating oil is $3.75 a gallon, no. #3. there is no such thing as an honest logger #4. I don't understand this question... do you intend to pulverize and pelletize a bunch of trees? Do you see why I think your questions are interesting?

Size of trees? Portable miller might be an option, if many farm buildings came down nearby ungraded lumber is pretty marketable.

I didnt mean split real nice. I meant logs sawed off to 24" long and thrown in the back.

That"s exactly what I was thinking.

Why on God"s green earth would you spend money buying gas and put wear and tear on pickups and chainsaws for $25/load?

If I"m going to spend that much time and effort for that little money, I"d rather just give it away for free to deserving poor and have some good come from my time spent, then sell it to tightwads.

(quoted from post at 07:38:53 06/01/11)no. #3. there is no such thing as an honest logger

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There are plenty of honest loggers out there you just have to look for them. Their services are advertised word of mouth and they stay busy as Foresters like myself keep them going because they do such nice work. You won't see them placing an add in the paper looking for timber or knocking on doors trying to buy wood.



Now as for storm damaged trees most likely their only use will be firewood. Damaged wood is downright scary when it gets debarked and sawed up in the mill. Pulpwood buyers generally require undamaged wood so they can chip it to their properly spec'd chip size.

If you contact a Logger--don't accept his first offer! Many years ago, a logger clearcut a property next to my 40 acres of huge mature hardwood. After they were finished, the owner came to my home on a Sunday morning and inquired about cutting my timber.
His first offer was 6K--after a discussion and a second drive through my property, he had raised his price to 10K!!

Assuming the trees are too small or splintered to be worth milling, and that they aren't a species favored as fence posts, you're left with fuel.

Selling firewood's probably a loser. Considerably more interesting is building or buying a woodgas producer to replace your gasoline use, whether vehicular or electric generation. The challenge there, as with any fuel, is to process the wood efficiently.

Lots of DIY information around. Below is one of the commercial sites for electric generation.
GEK gasifier

(quoted from post at 04:51:51 06/01/11) A tornado just took half the trees down from our farm woods. A select cut logging was done 4-5 years ago, which took the larger trees.

1. What is the best thing to do with the downed trees, for the best profit?

2. Is there something better than firewood?

3. What is the best way to find an honest logger?

4. Are wood pellets an option worth considering, to make use of the most product?

Thank you in advance,
Farm Family

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In followup to my first post on "Tornado just destroyed our Woods"
Thank you all sincerely for taking time to give your ideas.
Yes, the one poster was right we have our lives and are exceptionally grateful. We feel for the famlies which cannot say that now. Makes us want to drop all and help them, but sometimes one can do the most by also staying in an area and helping those who wont get help from the organizations.
We are not seeing many buildings effected in the area to date.
There are very good ideas here, especially for not knowing some details.
As for details:
I believe that fence posts would need Cedar etc right? So that wouldnt be an option. Too bad for us.
The woods is a mixed hardwood woods, such as:
Hard Maple and Soft Maple
Oak
Red and White Oak
some Cherry
some Ash
some Beechnut
maybe a few Tulip Trees
NO PINE TREES AT ALL

These Woods are approximately 40 acres, perhaps 300 trees downed in this 40 acres, (just a starting guess).
Most trees lay northeast direction, some other directions.
The ground being quite wet, may have made the trees less stable against winds?
Having people cut Firewood and the liabilities give me concern. It may not be worth the risk of people coming in to cut, unless we did the cutting ourselves, which is not our situation.

I have recommendations to look into paper mills and wood pellet companies, as some here have also mentioned.
Seems that finding a company that does both of these products may be a plus?
I do not know their requirements on useful product etc.....


Question 1:
How many people here feel the need to get it sold promptly within a short time, ie a week I am wondering? I am not sure if that poster was referring to LUMBER companies for a one week speed or ALL companies??
(for example, IF it is sold to paper mills and wood pellet companies do we think the same need for speed may exist?)

Question 2:
If a product were worth higher value, could it be worth transporting to that location
Where is the local biomass to biodiesel company when we need it now??
Jet/Airline companies need this stuff badly today!
I know they can make the biofuel diesel product, but transporting from southern MI to that unknown biofuel production location may not be practical? Know of one in this area??


Thanks for your time and thoughts,
Farm Family

according to your figures, you have down 8 trees per acre. That's a lot of fuel spent running around for the lowest value trees; not economically feasible. Cracked & split timber & sound timber will quickly be attacked by insects, fungi & disease. The storm has weakened the root systems of standing trees & soon another storm will double or quadruple the damage. Sell everything you can sell as fast as you can. The sooner you start over the better & faster the forest will heal. You really have nothing to lose.