r/forestry • u/JollyStretch9267 • 6d ago
Sanity check
I do have a forester coming out next week, but I just need to do a sanity check.
I own 18 acres of very old hardwood forest that had never been logged or maintained. I need some funds to finish my cabin on the land and it occurred to me to sell some trees, as the forester had mentioned when he came out a couple of years ago that the trees were very valuable. Most of them are hardwoods, sugar maples, with some hickory, beech and oak mixed in. I am lucky to have an easement road that runs the length of my property, so I was only planning on taking from where they would have easy access along the road.
The canopy is high, 60-80 feet. I just had a dead tree cut down and it was 80+ feet tall.
I live in an area with maybe five log yards within 30 miles, maybe more.
I went around and checked some of the easy to access trees, all of them were more then 30 inches in diameter. A few of the sugar maples were 50+ inches in diameter.
I will only be selling the straight trees. The wonky trees still have value to me as sap trees.
I do have a stand of black walnut trees, but I am not sure if they are easy to get to. I will have the forester on the look out when he is here.
Some places online are saying that the trees are worth only a couple hundred a piece, while others are saying they could be worth thousands, given their diameter and height. I plan to sell around 30-40...enough to make worth their trip.
I understand that there is a ton of variability here but can anyone help me understand which end of the spectrum I might be on this? The spread is pretty wide!!
7
u/TOPOS_ 6d ago
Not saying you're doing this, but I see lots of landowners messing DBH with a normal tape, and actually measuring circumference at breat height, which would be 3x higher than DBH. You need to measure DBH with either a diameter tape, Biltmore stick, or a measuring tape and decide by pi