Did you ever wonder if you were getting as much for your timber as other forest landowners across the state? A free publication, The Missouri Timber Price Trends, published by the Missouri Department of Conservation, summarizes average prices paid for standing timber, by species and grade. It can provide a good index of potential value of your timber IF, and notice I said IF, you have all the other necessary information to go with it, such as volume by species and grade.
Unless you have sought the assistance of a professional forester, you probably don't have enough information to make a good estimate of sale value. However, if you knew the average value received per acre from all timber sales in the state, you could judge your own timber accordingly. If that stimulates your interest, read on.
Data for Missouri Timber Price Trends is provided quarterly by Conservation Department foresters and private consultant foresters from timber sales conducted on both private and state lands. Part of the information provided with each report is the acreage on which the sale occurred and the total value of the sale price. Thus by compiling the total value of stumpage sold annually by all reporting foresters and dividing that sum by the total acreage of timber sales reported, an average dollar value per acre can be calculated. While this kind of average is useful only in a very general way, it still can provide an annual index of the returns forest landowners could expect if they manage their timber, and conduct timber harvests, with professional forestry assistance.
Recently, I had an interest in calculating the average timber sale return value for a couple of years to use in a presentation to professional resource managers. So I pulled all the timber sale reports for the years 1999 and 1996 (over 200 reports). (All stumpage price reports are confidential, however, I had access to them because I also compile and edit Missouri Timber Price Trends.) This was done by hand because the acreage figures have not been entered into any computer records. The results were somewhat surprising.
For calendar year 1996, returns from timber sales averaged $559 per acre for Missouri forest landowners. Does this surprise you? It surely surprised me and I work with these types of figures regularly.
Calendar year 1999 was not quite as good. As those of you who follow timber prices know, stumpage prices were somewhat lower in 1999 compared with 1996 when virtually all timber products were selling at record levels. In 1999, on average, Missouri timber owners received $509 per acre for timber sold that year. Still pretty good, but indicative that timing of timber sales can make a real difference in financial returns. We will calculate the values from other years as time permits and report on them in future issues.
Several points should be remembered when considering this average dollar return information.
- Shelby Jones, consulting forester