Green Horizons

Timber and sales

By Brian Schweiss

Ask why someone owns timber and you’ll hear: "It came with the land" or "I wanted some woods for hunting." Occasionally, it is to generate income from timber sales.

There may be a number of reasons for these sales, such as to help pay for the property, for needed income or to salvage dying trees. But one of the best reasons comes from Mark Nussbaum, a landowner near Burfordville, Mo. Mark said that "with proper management you can generate a regular stream of income from your woods while improving it for the future." His commitment lead him to become the 2009 Tree Farmer of the Year and in 2013, he became the board president of FWAM.

Mark manages 450 acres of woods on his family’s 610 acre farm. He strives to have a timber sale every year on at least 30 acres. The woods are divided into 15 stands. Each year, trees within a stand are marked and sold to a local buyer. Mark has been working on this project for the past 20 years. Thus, some of these stands have been harvested twice already.

"With each harvest the timber gets better," Mark said. "Our goal is to generate a reasonable return while we grow better quality timber."

The practice of taking the good trees while leaving the rest is called high grading and makes future stands poorer. Unfortunately, high grading is common in Missouri. The state is ranked second in the nation with the number of rough, rotten and nonmerchantable species growing in our woods according to Stephen Shifley of the U.S. Forest Service. This is not the case for Mark, who is focused on growing furniture-grade hardwood.

The key is to leave trees that have the potential to increase in both volume and quality. Over time, value can be maximized. A low quality tree may increase in volume but the board foot value remains the same. On the other hand, a crop tree’s jump in grade from lumber to a stave or veneer log over time gives the owner a volume increase and value per board foot increase. This illustrates the principle that what you leave is just as important as what you take during a timber sale.

In Mark’s case, his goal is to remove mature high quality trees and smaller low quality trees. Plenty of good quality smaller trees are left with growing space until the next harvest.

For most landowners, the first step is to get expert advice. Foresters from the Missouri Department of Conservation and private consulting foresters can help develop a plan for your woods. It will outline areas ready for a sale, areas that need to be left alone for now and areas that need pre-sale management.

Many landowners will not start with a high quality stand of timber. They may have stands with too many trees in them, but the ones that need to come out have little or no value. The best option may be to thin the stand by killing the poor quality trees and leaving them there. This type of thinning can cost over $100 per acre, but there are some cost share programs to assist with this practice. A local MDC forester or private forester can tell you more about these programs.

Even with cost share programs, the landowners will bear some expense but the benefits are tremendous. Increased growing space for high value trees helps wildlife, and remaining trees grow faster and are in better health.