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How to start: Step by step to managing pine timber | Wild Turkey Science #462 · Natural Resources University

0:00
if you do that in a pine stand this fall
0:03
and then follow it up with a prescribed burn,
0:06
you're gonna love what you see come springtime
0:09
and it's gonna be a whole lot better going forward.
0:12
I think just having a forester looking out
0:14
for your property on your behalf
0:16
because financially it can have a big impact
0:19
on the decisions you make.
0:21
And so you're planting and managing timber now
0:24
for the next 25 plus years.
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So I think it's important to have somebody
0:27
that's kind of looking out for you
0:29
and helping you make those decisions
0:30
and understanding those prescriptions
0:33
and understanding what the prices are
0:34
and the different application methods and everything.
0:37
It's just good to have somebody
0:38
that's kind of on your side,
0:40
helping you walk through all that.
0:42
Welcome to Wild Turkey Science,
0:53
a podcast made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow.
0:57
I'm Dr. Marcus Lashley,
0:58
Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Florida.
1:02
And I'm Dr. Will Goolsby,
1:05
Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management
1:07
at Auburn University.
1:08
We're both lifelong hunters and devoted scientists
1:11
who are passionate about hunting,
1:13
managing and researching wild turkeys.
1:16
In this podcast, we'll explore turkey research,
1:19
speak to the experts in the field
1:21
and address the difficult questions
1:23
related to wild turkey ecology and management.
1:26
Our goal is to serve as your connection
1:29
to wild turkey science.
1:30
This is gonna be a really good one today though, y'all.
1:40
I think, I mean, you know,
1:41
we've been talking a lot about forest management lately,
1:45
this relative, relevant to the landowner.
1:48
And we're gonna continue with that theme today
1:50
with Michael Heatherly,
1:52
an awesome, fantastic guest that we have here.
1:55
He's a forester with Sizemore and Sizemore,
1:58
almost said what you asked me not to.
2:00
But Michael, tell us a little bit about
2:03
what you do in that role and we'll get into it.
2:05
Yeah, first off,
2:06
I appreciate having the opportunity to come on here.
2:08
I'm an avid listener of the show
2:12
and I think I'm up to speed on every episode of the podcast.
2:15
So it's an honor to be here.
2:17
Thank you for that.
2:18
Yeah, so I graduated in 2008 in forestry from Auburn.
2:24
And started out as just a field technician
2:27
with Sizemore and Sizemore,
2:29
doing forestry consultant work
2:32
and have slowly grown into the role
2:34
of being more of a forest manager.
2:36
And in the past five years,
2:38
we started doing more land sales.
2:39
So I currently hold our broker's license
2:43
with our timber land sales as well.
2:44
But day to day,
2:45
I'm working with mostly private land owners.
2:49
And we also have some clients that are,
2:53
you know, investment timber companies.
2:56
So that's kind of my day-to-day role
2:58
is forest management with private land owners.
3:00
And so-
3:04
Yeah, and I think one of the things
3:06
that connected you and I to begin with
3:08
is that as opposed to some foresters,
3:12
you do a lot of habitat focused work.
3:16
I would say much more than the average forester does.
3:19
We really do.
3:20
And we've kind of gotten into the past,
3:23
probably eight or 10 years, even,
3:25
to where I would say the majority
3:29
of our land owner clients now have wildlife management
3:34
as at least a secondary, you know,
3:36
objective for the property.
3:38
You know, we used to be more focused on,
3:40
most of our land owners
3:41
were about maximizing timber income.
3:44
And it seems in the past 10 years
3:46
has really transitioned to where
3:48
that wildlife management is either the top,
3:52
you know, goal, or it's the second,
3:55
you know, secondary objective on the property.
3:58
Yeah.
3:59
And so we've really focused a lot on that
4:01
the past few years.
4:03
Well, as a wildlife biologist, that excites me.
4:06
Yeah.
4:07
The shifting objectives.
4:09
I agree.
4:10
I also kind of feel like I've observed
4:13
a very similar trend.
4:15
And, you know, it's just been interesting
4:19
watching that play out.
4:20
I mean, everybody that comes to me,
4:22
or I'm assuming Will, has wildlife number one,
4:25
but it does seem like a broader trend in general
4:28
that, you know, that land management objectives
4:33
are shifting and wildlife is often,
4:37
it's always been, I guess, in the top three
4:40
in terms of like serving landowners in the South, at least.
4:42
But now it seems to commonly rank one.
4:47
Yeah.
4:47
I used to get nervous when I'd recommend to a landowner
4:49
that they thin below, you know, optimal stocking
4:52
or a traditional fifth row or whatever.
4:55
But now it's like, you know,
4:58
you used to have to almost brace yourself
4:59
for the conversation or the debate
5:01
that was coming after that.
5:02
But now it's just like, okay, tell me where to sign.
5:06
And that's where we want to go today.
5:08
And Michael, where I thought we could
5:10
probably start out with is let's just pretend that,
5:13
you know, we're landowners.
5:15
We just bought our first piece of property.
5:17
We want to manage it for turkeys and, you know,
5:20
maybe deer and other wildlife.
5:22
What do we do?
5:23
How does this process start?
5:24
Like once we reach out to you and kind of
5:26
what are the nuts and bolts of that?
5:28
Yeah.
5:29
So, you know, the first thing that I always want to know
5:31
when somebody reaches out to us
5:34
is what their objectives are on the property.
5:37
That's kind of the number one question
5:39
and kind of the starting place is what do you want to do?
5:43
You know, do you want to maximize timber,
5:46
have wildlife as kind of secondary objective,
5:48
or do you not care anything about timber production
5:51
and focus on wildlife?
5:52
So that kind of puts us on track of where,
5:54
what kind of recommendations that we make to a landowner.
5:57
From there, you know, we do a site visit
6:00
or we look at aerial photographs
6:01
and kind of see what maybe some options are.
6:04
You know, I'm not a biologist,
6:06
but I've spent a lot of time in the woods
6:09
with biologists on properties.
6:11
You know, where we've met with landowners
6:12
and a biologist on site,
6:15
and I've seen a lot of the recommendations
6:16
and the practices that have been put in place.
6:18
So there's some things that are kind of straightforward
6:22
and simple as far as if you have an unthinned
6:24
pine plantation, we got to get some sunlight to the ground.
6:27
You know, I think everybody can agree on that.
6:29
And then after that, depending on what comes up,
6:33
you know, if there needs to be a herbicide application
6:36
or, you know, a fire, you know, rotation put into place.
6:40
So we usually just start out with objectives
6:43
and trying to figure out what people are interested in.
6:45
And then based on what they have on their property,
6:48
what kind of timber stands they have,
6:49
then we make recommendations based on that
6:52
to meet their objectives.
6:54
And, you know, we are foresters primarily,
6:57
but I want to do whatever the landowner wants.
6:59
You know, if their objective is wildlife,
7:02
I have a lot of people that say,
7:04
I'm not interested in any clear cutting.
7:06
And we're fine with that.
7:07
You know, we're perfectly fine with, you know,
7:10
if the timber needs to be thinned
7:11
or we need to get some sunlight in there, we can do that.
7:13
And, you know, we do what the landowner wants to do
7:16
to achieve their objectives.
7:18
Yeah.
7:19
Marcus and I were just having a conversation about that
7:21
on a recent episode where we sometimes feel like
7:24
if a landowner has us out, they feel apologetic
7:27
if they have objectives other than turkeys,
7:29
like whether that be deer,
7:31
whether that be timber, cows, or something else.
7:34
And it's like, you never have to apologize
7:36
for what you want.
7:37
It's your land.
7:38
And my job is to just help you make it
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what you want it to be.
7:41
Yeah.
7:42
And also, you know, when we were having that discussion,
7:45
we made, this may have come up,
7:47
but you don't have to use all of your property
7:51
to maximize one objective.
7:54
You know, in that case, it may be turkeys,
7:57
but, you know, you may have some stands
7:59
that are really productive timber
8:02
and you want to maximize timber there.
8:03
That doesn't mean you have to do that everywhere.
8:06
It also doesn't mean that you have to,
8:08
you know, I hesitate to say this,
8:10
but you don't have to maximize turkeys everywhere.
8:12
That's not your only objective.
8:15
So, yeah, I have found it interesting.
8:19
Michael, one of the things that you,
8:21
when you were just talking then
8:23
that kind of resonated with me, I guess before,
8:26
you know, we really wanted to get into the nuts
8:28
and bolts of, as a landowner,
8:31
what are the steps they'd need to take, you know,
8:33
and even like, how do they get the timber sold
8:35
and get people on the property and all that stuff.
8:38
But one of the things that you just said
8:41
was a lot of landowners aren't,
8:45
or I guess if they have a wildlife objective,
8:47
they may never see clear-cutting as an endpoint of a stand.
8:51
So I'm just curious, I'd like to hear you talk about that
8:55
because I talk to landowners about this regularly,
8:57
that particularly that have like a lot of wally pine
9:02
on, you know, stands on their property,
9:04
and I have talked to them about clear-cutting
9:06
doesn't necessarily have to be the endpoint
9:09
if they have a wildlife objective.
9:10
So would you mind sharing, you know,
9:14
your perspective on that?
9:15
Sure. I think one thing that's important too,
9:17
and something that is good from a timber standpoint
9:20
is that if you do cut timber,
9:23
whether it be thinning or clear-cut,
9:26
that usually generates some income
9:29
that you can turn around and put back into the property.
9:31
So that's really important, you know, to be able to,
9:34
if you wanna get your property in really good shape,
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you're probably gonna need to spend some money
9:39
on herbicide and fire lanes,
9:41
and there's gonna be some input there on cost,
9:44
and so having some timber harvest planned
9:47
is usually a really good thing.
9:48
So when we look at older stands of loblolly pine,
9:54
the couple of things that concern me a little bit
9:57
is timber outgrowing the markets.
10:01
You know, it seems there's been a really big shift
10:04
from people, the mills wanting you
10:08
to grow big, large saw timber now
10:10
to where chip and saw size trees,
10:13
like a 12 to 14-inch tree is kind of the optimum size tree
10:18
as far as that's typically gonna be your highest value
10:22
other than a pole.
10:24
That's typically gonna be your highest value.
10:27
When timber gets to be in that 12 to 15-inch size
10:31
at breast height, that's kind of gonna be
10:35
your economic maturity of that stand.
10:37
So you kind of have to make a decision of, you know,
10:40
knowing if you thin that and don't clear-cut that now,
10:43
then it's not being as productive as it could be.
10:46
Am I gonna outgrow the markets
10:48
if I continue to grow this stand
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and it gets to be 16, 18 inches at DBH?
10:53
Is it gonna outgrow my local market?
10:55
So there's, depending on what area you're in,
10:57
that's something to consider.
10:59
And then like you mentioned, Marcus,
11:01
the clear-cutting is not the kind of the end game.
11:06
Are we clear-cut this and all of our habitat's gone?
11:08
Because what we've seen is if you have a stand
11:11
that's been thin and well-managed,
11:13
say you've done some herbicide applications
11:17
throughout the rotation, you've done burning,
11:19
you have that understory in good shape.
11:21
When you clear-cut that, if you come back in,
11:24
especially with longleaf pine
11:26
that you can manage with fire afterwards,
11:28
you get good habitat almost immediately afterwards.
11:32
And so you may have a lag period of a year
11:35
where you've got a site-prepped area
11:37
that doesn't have anything growing.
11:38
But as soon as the next spring comes,
11:41
you're back into some pretty good habitat pretty quickly.
11:43
So I think that's important to people understand that.
11:47
I know people like to look at trees
11:49
and they're pretty to look at,
11:50
but sometimes that's the best option.
11:54
Cut timber, get some income,
11:55
use that money to put into other places on your property.
11:59
And longleaf pine's not the answer for everybody,
12:03
but whenever we're looking specifically
12:06
for people who are interested in wildlife,
12:08
we do recommend longleaf on a lot of sites
12:12
because you can burn it at such a young age
12:15
and early and often as you want to.
12:18
I feel like I'm about to take us down a path
12:22
that is kind of off topic
12:23
of what we originally wanted to talk about,
12:26
but we do it all the time.
12:27
So what the heck?
12:28
But I think you brought up some really good points, Michael.
12:30
And a clear cut is not always a bad thing.
12:33
And I recommend clear cutting to landowners all the time.
12:35
I mean, it's not just a net loss,
12:39
but it can also be creation of a field,
12:41
creation of a food plot, early successional area.
12:44
I might have to clear cut one of my stands
12:47
to attract a buyer.
12:48
And that's what I think we're gonna get into
12:50
in a little while so that I have enough volume
12:53
to make them interested in coming to my property
12:55
and doing the other things that I needed to do
12:56
if that's thinning or something else elsewhere.
12:59
So there's lots of reasons
13:01
that you would potentially consider that
13:03
and it not always be a net negative
13:04
in terms of the habitat quality of that site.
13:07
I think that that's definitely an important point,
13:10
especially when we're working with people with turkeys,
13:13
there's a lot of concern that,
13:16
and it may be somewhat founded
13:18
if you were going back with loblolly,
13:20
but at least if you replanted with longleaf,
13:23
just because you clear cut doesn't mean
13:25
that there's no turkey habitat for the longterm.
13:30
Like there could be with some regeneration techniques,
13:36
but what about on the other side, Michael?
13:42
So you were talking about timber outgrow in the market.
13:46
So let's say somebody is interested in thinning
13:49
to a relatively low basal area
13:51
and then trying to maintain that in perpetuity
13:55
so they don't wanna ever clear cut,
13:57
sort of like more like a quail plantation model, I guess.
14:00
And those trees do get bigger than the market.
14:05
Are they done with options to harvest
14:07
or what do they do in that situation?
14:10
Yeah, so in our area,
14:13
like a 25 or 26 inch butt is gonna be the maximum size
14:19
that you can take to a mill.
14:20
And even that size is limited
14:22
to a couple of different mills.
14:24
And so once you get to that size,
14:27
you're really limited to any kind of timber harvest.
14:30
And we'll talk about this later with the logging
14:35
and just the demand and trying to get things done.
14:40
Loggers, they like efficiency
14:43
and they like high productivity.
14:45
And when you have a low basal area
14:47
staying with a lot of large diameter trees,
14:50
it's not very attractive to a logger.
14:53
So I think you almost have to make that decision
14:56
at some point.
14:57
If you wanna thin this and you want to have this,
15:00
even like a quail type plantation look,
15:03
you're pretty much committed to have that.
15:05
And what we've done sometimes is we've inter-planted
15:08
some long leaf or short leaf around those mature trees
15:12
so that you have some control of your regeneration.
15:16
But I think at a certain point, you've basically committed,
15:18
like I'm never gonna cut this overstory out of the stand.
15:22
Yeah, so even if they have a 60 basal area target
15:28
or a 40 basal area target,
15:30
once they get to that really large,
15:32
it may even be hard for you to thin it
15:34
to keep it that low over the long term.
15:38
I've encountered a couple of bigger plantations
15:40
that have purchased their own logging equipment
15:43
for that reason.
15:44
And I mean, they're just cutting trees
15:46
and stacking them a lot of times.
15:48
Yeah, like at the pulp mill,
15:49
typically like a 25 inch butt's kind of maximum that too.
15:52
So whenever you end up with these trees
15:55
that are low basal area and they're large diameter,
15:58
a lot of times they're not good enough quality
16:00
to even take to a saw mill.
16:02
And so they end up as pulpwood trees
16:05
that are too big to go to the pulp mill too.
16:07
So they almost become from a timber value standpoint,
16:11
almost become worthless from that sense.
16:15
Obviously from an aesthetic standpoint and habitat,
16:18
they're worth something to the landowner,
16:21
but not as far as stumpage value.
16:25
Right.
16:26
Yeah, so let's go ahead and get into that,
16:30
the nuts and bolts discussion.
16:31
I feel like it's how we keep referring to it.
16:33
But a landowner contacts you,
16:35
you establish their objectives and to meet those objectives,
16:40
there's gonna be some timber harvest involved.
16:42
So how does that process start and what's it look like?
16:45
So, I don't wanna sound like a professor Will,
16:52
but it depends, right?
16:54
That's the answer you always get, it depends.
17:00
Depends on what they have,
17:04
is it something that needs to be first thin
17:06
that's never been thin?
17:07
Is it all pulpwood?
17:08
Is it older timber?
17:10
Depends on what they have.
17:12
And typically just broadly speaking,
17:17
a 30 or 40 acre stand of timber is about the minimum size
17:22
that you need to get a crew to come in
17:26
and do some type of timber harvest.
17:28
Now that could depend on the volume.
17:30
You could have a stand that if you're thinning,
17:33
it may only be thinning one load to the acre.
17:36
30 loads is not as attractive
17:39
versus if you're clear cutting a 30 acre stand
17:41
that may be running four or five loads to the acre,
17:44
high volume, it's a whole lot more attractive for somebody.
17:47
So we kind of look at what is on the landowner's property
17:52
and try to make a good decision
17:54
of how to market that timber.
17:57
We sell timber by the ton, pay is cut,
18:00
so they pay as they cut it and we sell it lump sum.
18:04
A lot of times when we're working with people
18:06
who are wildlife minded, we're selling timber by the ton,
18:10
we're negotiating so that we have a lot more control
18:13
over when the timber's harvested.
18:14
So the standard in timber harvest contracts
18:19
typically 12 months, 12 to 18 months,
18:23
it's kind of a typical contract.
18:25
Well, a lot of people, whenever their main objectives
18:27
are deer and turkey hunting,
18:29
they may not want you there in deer season or turkey season.
18:33
And so when you start adding these restrictions
18:36
to when somebody can be there and certain months,
18:39
say you're already on a property that can only be
18:43
maybe harvested six months out of the year
18:44
due to the condition of the roads
18:48
or just the condition of the ground on the property,
18:51
and then you add another restriction
18:53
of not deer in deer season or not deer in turkey season,
18:56
those are the kind of sales that we will try
18:58
to negotiate directly with somebody.
19:00
And then you can lay all those criteria out there
19:04
ahead of time.
19:05
Like, hey, do you have somebody that can get here
19:07
between now and the end of October or by Thanksgiving?
19:10
Or you can go ahead and kind of establish those parameters.
19:15
Yeah, it's nice when that's an option,
19:16
but sometimes it's not.
19:18
And if it's not, I mean, I can't tell you how many times
19:21
that I've given landowners the advice.
19:23
It's just like, rip the Band-Aid off,
19:25
let them harvest this deer season or this turkey season,
19:27
and you'll thank yourself in a couple of years.
19:29
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
19:33
Especially in this day and age
19:34
where it can be hard to move wood sometimes.
19:36
It can be, and it can be really hard to move timber.
19:40
And I'm more of the mindset, let's get it cut
19:44
when we can get somebody in there to cut it
19:45
and then sit back and enjoy your place moving forward,
19:48
you know, because there's gonna be things,
19:50
just like the, if it's not timber harvest,
19:53
it's gonna be herbicide.
19:54
Hey, we're gonna go into this winter
19:56
and we've just killed out your understory,
19:59
but next year it's gonna be great.
20:01
So you're gonna have one deer season
20:02
where you're not gonna have a lot of cover in there,
20:04
one turkey season where it's more open than you'd like,
20:06
but to get to the end goal, that's what you need to do.
20:09
So that's usually, if people are willing to do that,
20:14
that's the best thing is to give a logging company
20:17
the most options, the biggest timeframe,
20:20
most options, you're also gonna get possibly more money
20:23
for your timber, given them the, you know,
20:25
if you're saying we're gonna give you 12 months,
20:28
they have a whole lot more flexibility
20:30
as you know, timing out the markets and everything
20:32
versus you give them three or four month contract.
20:35
So it's typically gonna lead to a little bit higher prices
20:37
if you give them the more flexibility.
20:40
That makes sense.
20:44
So once the harvest has been planned
20:49
and the actual operation starts, you know,
20:52
a lot of landowners ask, well, how do we make sure
20:55
that the logger is hitting the prescription?
20:58
You know, like what we wanted to happen
21:00
as a result of this harvest,
21:01
how we wanted the stand to look like.
21:03
Yeah, so that, I mean, that all be as a consultant for us,
21:07
that's something that we go out and kind of oversee
21:09
and monitor the harvest while the loggers out there,
21:12
but that would all be something that would be
21:14
on a exhibit map in the contract.
21:17
And it would be, you know,
21:18
the criteria would be outlined in the contract.
21:20
You know, if it's a first thinning,
21:22
what's your desired residual base layer is gonna be
21:25
after thinning and the same with say something
21:28
that's a second or third thinning.
21:30
You're typically, you know, thinning back
21:33
to a certain density and that would be up to us
21:35
to kind of oversee that and make sure that we're,
21:38
you know, hitting that density.
21:39
And the reason I mentioned on, you know, pay us cut sales
21:44
if you're doing an operator select harvest,
21:48
a thinning where the operators out there
21:51
picking the trees to cut,
21:53
that's the only way you can sell timbers by the time.
21:56
Yeah.
21:57
When you start, when you go to a lump sum sale,
21:59
you have to have very defined boundaries.
22:02
If it's a thinning, you would have to have the trees
22:04
either marked to cut or marked to leave out there
22:07
in order to sell it on a lump sum basis.
22:10
And so that's-
22:11
Because the forester already knows the volume
22:12
that's out there that they should be getting paid for
22:14
in that situation.
22:15
Yeah, you would know on a lump sum sale,
22:19
you need, if it's a thinning,
22:21
you need to have either the leave trees
22:22
or the trees that get cut marked.
22:25
We would go out there and cruise the timber,
22:27
tell the landowner, this is the volume we expect,
22:30
you know, and this is the prices.
22:32
And then we would take bids on that on a lump sum basis.
22:34
And the same as a, like a clear cut,
22:36
you have very defined boundaries.
22:39
You know, an estimate of the volume that's there.
22:41
So you can give the landowner expectation.
22:44
Here's what the prices are gonna be.
22:46
So typically on lump sum sales,
22:50
we recommend those if it's,
22:52
if you have really good access,
22:54
like all weather logging, you've got good road access,
22:59
you're flexible with your length of contract.
23:01
Like if you would allow a full 12 months,
23:04
basically pretty unrestricted as far as that goes.
23:08
And then we go out there and cruise the timber
23:11
and give the landowner,
23:12
we mark out the stream side management zones and anything
23:15
so that we know exactly the acreage of what's to be sold.
23:18
When you're looking at thinnings,
23:22
if you're gonna do a lump sum sale on a thinning,
23:24
you have to have the trees marked,
23:26
you know, prior to selling the timber.
23:28
So, Michael, I think you're making a case for it,
23:33
but you have asked this occasionally.
23:38
So a lot of people have land
23:41
and they might be interested in getting a cut done
23:46
or selling some timber.
23:48
So we didn't talk about this up front,
23:53
we just kind of assumed that they already went
23:55
and found a forester.
23:57
But a lot of the things that you're talking about,
24:00
like marking trees and trying to keep track
24:04
of what the loggers are doing
24:05
and all those sorts of things,
24:06
that would be on the landowner
24:08
unless they came to somebody like yourself.
24:10
That's correct, yeah.
24:12
So Alabama and a lot of the states have a designation
24:18
as like, in Alabama, it's a registered forester.
24:21
So they'll be a registered forester.
24:22
You have to have a four-year degree
24:24
from an accredited program,
24:26
two years of field experience,
24:27
and then pass a test to be a registered forester.
24:30
So you could be a registered-
24:32
That's administered by SAF, right?
24:34
Society of American Foresters?
24:35
That's correct.
24:36
Yeah, and there's a board of registered foresters
24:39
in Alabama that kind of oversees that license.
24:42
So you could be a procurement forester and be registered.
24:47
And we kind of designate ourself as consulting foresters,
24:52
and we're also members of the Association
24:55
of Consulting Foresters
24:56
that we have a little bit extra continuing education
24:59
as a ACF member.
25:02
And we basically have said,
25:04
we have no business doing anything with procurement
25:07
on the procurement side,
25:09
but you basically have procurement foresters
25:11
and then consulting forester.
25:12
And we work with the procurement foresters
25:14
to sell the timber to landowners.
25:17
But yeah, technically in Alabama,
25:19
to advise landowners on forest management activities
25:24
and timber inventory,
25:26
tell them what the timber's worth, that sort of thing,
25:28
you're supposed to be a registered forester.
25:31
So to put it in like a real estate analogy,
25:34
because I think a lot of people
25:35
are probably more familiar with that,
25:36
like a consulting forester is more like a seller's agent
25:39
and a procurement forester is more like a buyer's agent.
25:42
Is that right?
25:43
Yeah, I think you could say that.
25:46
I think you could.
25:47
I think Michael thinks my analogy was weak.
25:48
He's trying to get me out.
25:51
Well, it's not the first time.
25:53
I know, it won't be the last.
25:54
No, I think sometimes,
25:58
I had a conversation with a landowner the other day,
26:01
and a lot of times people call us
26:03
and they don't really understand what our role is.
26:06
They don't know whether we're a timber buyer or what we do.
26:09
And so I explained to them,
26:10
hey, we're working for the landowner.
26:12
We're working for you and your best interest.
26:15
Well, then I get the comment,
26:16
well, you're kind of the middleman
26:18
or you're the broker or whatever.
26:20
And it's like, well, no, I personally,
26:22
I see a place for the procurement foresters
26:25
and what they do.
26:26
They deal with the logging side and with the mills,
26:28
and they have a lot of responsibility there
26:30
to keep up with quotas.
26:33
And we're on the side of working for the landowner.
26:35
So I think there's-
26:35
Yeah, they're working for the good of the mill,
26:37
the procurement forester.
26:38
Yeah, the mill and for their loggers
26:41
and to make sure that woods flow into the mill.
26:43
And as a consultant,
26:45
we don't have, I have basically no contact with the mill.
26:49
Whenever they go on quota, they put a logger on quota.
26:52
I hear that from the procurement forester,
26:54
like, hey, we can't haul pulpwood the end of this week
26:56
because the mill's shutting off, that sort of thing.
26:59
I feel like there's a, there's kind of a place for,
27:02
you know, both sides in the business.
27:05
But I mean, that's kind of the difference.
27:08
We, you know, tell landowners that we're working for them
27:13
for their best interest.
27:14
And we don't have any, you know,
27:16
any interest in the procurement side.
27:18
Yeah, I think I'm kind of thinking through that,
27:22
you know, you're providing several things
27:25
that you have the expertise for
27:26
that most landowners don't have for themselves,
27:29
but you're also there to protect them in a sense.
27:32
Like, you're working in their best interest
27:35
in making sure that the prices that they're getting,
27:39
what gets cut, how it gets cut, how the land is left,
27:42
all those sorts of things are in accordance
27:46
with their contract.
27:47
That's right, and that would be,
27:48
if somebody asked me, what are your services?
27:50
I mean, that's basically when we get ready to sell timber,
27:54
we know what the acreage is,
27:57
we know kind of estimated timber volumes.
28:00
We mark out the sale boundaries.
28:02
We either negotiate or bid out the sale
28:05
to, you know, procurement companies.
28:08
And then once we get a contract,
28:10
then that's, we write the contract in favor of the landowner
28:13
to, you know, have a, maybe an advanced payment
28:17
on a pay as cut sale that, you know,
28:19
once somebody puts a little bit money down,
28:21
that kind of helps ensure that they're going to show up
28:23
and, you know, do the job.
28:25
We have a performance deposit in there that, you know,
28:29
if gates get torn up or if the roads are left in bad shape,
28:32
that kind of ensures that they're going to come back
28:34
and do that.
28:35
And so that's kind of what we do.
28:37
We implement the contract.
28:38
We oversee, once the timber harvesting starts,
28:41
we're out there overseeing the job,
28:43
communicating with the landowner,
28:45
making sure that they're happy.
28:47
And then we keep up with the loads
28:49
and make sure that everything gets paid for,
28:52
that gets hauled and that sort of thing.
28:54
And, you know, Alabama has a best management practices
28:59
for forestry.
29:00
And I would say overall, people are very good about,
29:02
you know, complying with those, you know,
29:05
without us overseeing that.
29:07
But we're just, we're there to make sure
29:09
that things are done correctly and, you know,
29:12
in working for the best interest of the landowner.
29:15
And you're actually, you know,
29:17
getting paid a fair price for the actual amount
29:20
that you're selling that they're taking off the land too.
29:22
Right.
29:23
Yeah.
29:24
Yeah.
29:25
I mean, there's, I'm trying to think,
29:27
there's so many different questions
29:28
I want to ask you right now
29:29
that I think our audience would be interested in, but yeah.
29:32
So making sure, we talked about the contract.
29:35
What are, you touched on this briefly,
29:38
but just so that we're explicit with it,
29:40
what are some of the things
29:41
that are typically specified in a contract?
29:43
Well, some of the important things are the length
29:48
of the contract is always really important.
29:50
Like we talked about earlier,
29:51
how much time you're going to give somebody
29:52
to cut the timber.
29:53
We do have the performance deposit in there
29:58
that basically gets held in an escrow account
30:01
to ensure that the contract,
30:04
everybody's in compliance with the contract.
30:06
It's going to specify in there,
30:09
if it's like an operator select thinning,
30:11
it's going to specify that it's a fourth
30:14
or fifth row thinning desired residual basal area,
30:18
plus or minus 10 square feet of basal area.
30:20
So it specifies what gets harvested.
30:22
If it's like a clear cut,
30:25
it'll specify if we're taking out pines
30:28
or other trees out of the stream side management zone
30:31
or around the perimeter of the sale,
30:33
it'll say the trees marked a certain way will get cut.
30:38
It's got the per unit prices,
30:40
either if it's a per unit sale or pay as cut sale,
30:44
it'll have the per unit prices in there
30:47
and the product specifications.
30:49
So it gives you the specification for pulpwood,
30:51
chip and saw, saw timber, poles,
30:53
or whatever products that you have,
30:54
it'll specify in there exactly
30:56
what those product specifications are.
30:58
If it's a lump sum contract,
31:00
it'll have that lump sum payment amount in there.
31:03
Insurance requirements.
31:06
We ask that the landowner and our company
31:11
be listed as additional insured on their insurance policies
31:15
before any harvesting begins.
31:16
So that's some of the basis.
31:19
I mean, our contract, I think it's maybe only four pages
31:23
or so, and it's something that's been kind of adjusted
31:26
over the years.
31:27
But the people that we work with on the buying side,
31:31
they're used to seeing our contract
31:33
and they're comfortable with it
31:34
and they understand what those expectations are.
31:36
And so we typically don't have a lot of problems.
31:40
Yeah.
31:41
I would say that another major benefit
31:44
to working with a forester,
31:45
especially to the uninitiated,
31:47
is there's so much kind of institutional knowledge
31:50
that comes along with a local forester
31:52
in terms of you know who are the best logging companies
31:56
to work with, for instance.
31:57
Like, they're gonna leave your property
32:00
in really good shape, you know?
32:01
And you may not always get to go with that contractor,
32:03
but you at least have a good starting point
32:06
of who to choose from.
32:07
And then you know the markets, right?
32:10
So like, we should go ahead and cut these trees now
32:12
versus it'll be a little bit more valuable
32:14
if we wait two, three, five, 10 years, whatever.
32:17
Just like all those little nuanced details
32:19
that you know because you work in that area every day
32:23
and deal with those loggers
32:24
so you know what they're looking for.
32:26
Yeah, and one thing, just when you mentioned that,
32:29
knowing kind of when to harvest
32:30
and what's in demand in the area
32:34
and that sort of thing.
32:35
There's one stand in particular that I'm thinking of
32:38
that's the average diameter now
32:40
is probably 12 inches or so,
32:42
but the tree quality in this stand is just really good.
32:47
I mean, the seedling genetics and everything
32:50
were really good.
32:51
We did a couple of marked thinnings in this stand
32:53
and it's just really high quality.
32:55
Well, right now, let's just say,
32:59
throwing out there, the stumpage price
33:02
for chip and saw or small saw timber
33:05
is probably about half right now,
33:08
depending on what market you're in versus a pole.
33:12
So letting those 12 or 13 inch trees
33:16
grow just another inch in DBH
33:19
to where they may meet that pole class,
33:23
you could double your stumpage value right there.
33:25
And then vice versa, if you have a lot of,
33:31
if your stand's averaging 12 or 13 inches
33:34
and it doesn't have pole quality
33:36
and somebody's interested in maximizing
33:38
their income off of that,
33:40
it may be time to cut it now.
33:42
You may be at the peak of the market
33:45
for your particular stand in your particular market
33:49
if you don't have pole quality timber,
33:51
but if you do and you have a high percentage of poles,
33:54
just wait in a few years, you could double your stumpage.
33:57
So that's the kind of stuff that we can see
34:01
when we go out there, like, hey, hold on to this stand.
34:03
If you're interested in clear cutting,
34:05
let's hold it a few more years,
34:06
or you have health issues with,
34:11
we've had a lot of pine beetle infestations
34:13
with the lack of thinning and things like that.
34:17
If you see issues where you're like,
34:19
you really need to go ahead and cut this
34:21
and we can make a recommendation
34:22
based on whatever we see out there.
34:24
Along those lines, it made me think about this
34:29
when Will asked you that previous question.
34:33
So, well, I guess I'm asking for you to tell us,
34:38
but with landowners, are they just coming to you
34:48
when they think they're ready to do it,
34:50
or do you have some that you're working with
34:53
over a long term where they may have long stints of time
34:56
where they're not cutting anything?
34:59
How does that work in terms of your relationship
35:01
with landowners?
35:03
Yeah, so most of the time what we do
35:06
is once we've established a relationship with a landowner,
35:10
we kind of keep that property in our database
35:12
and keep up with what's going on out there.
35:14
So then we kind of know year to year,
35:16
like, hey, you have a long leaf stand
35:18
that's getting ready to be, it needs to be burned.
35:21
It hasn't had a burn since we planted it
35:23
two or three years ago, it's ready to be burned.
35:26
We know plantation age is out there
35:28
when they're approaching thinning age.
35:30
So we kind of keep up,
35:31
once we have an established relationship
35:32
with a landowner, we kind of keep up with the database
35:35
and know what those properties need.
35:38
And a lot of times what we'll do,
35:40
if somebody has enough acreage,
35:42
we'll do like a five year plan that just says tentatively,
35:47
we think this is what needs to happen
35:50
over the next five years.
35:51
And that gives them kind of something to look at
35:53
and us too, to go back and say, okay, hey,
35:56
we recommended, we need to thin this next year.
35:58
We need to be out there inspecting that
36:00
and making sure it's big enough to thin
36:01
and keeping in touch with the landowner.
36:04
So that's what preferably what I like to do,
36:07
just kind of give them a little short term,
36:11
sometimes we go out 10 or 15 years on properties,
36:14
but even just a five year plan of,
36:16
hey, this is what can be expected over the next five years
36:20
if we don't have any kind of natural disaster
36:22
or anything to cause us to deviate from this.
36:28
So in that case, when you're kind of planning out,
36:32
you know, potentially many stands that,
36:36
you know, they're gonna be in a window of time
36:40
where you're looking at a thinning or some sort of harvest.
36:43
And then on top of that,
36:45
you're keeping up with what's going on with the market.
36:48
So maybe next year, the market is really well.
36:51
So then you would come back to the landowners like,
36:53
well, you know, we planned on it being two years out,
36:56
but the market's excellent right now.
36:58
So you should probably,
36:59
so is that the sort of dynamic that you're working with?
37:04
Correct, yeah.
37:05
So we had several large timber sales
37:08
that we had scheduled to sell.
37:10
Just generally speaking in our area,
37:14
we get a little bit better prices in the winter time.
37:17
You know, things get wet,
37:18
people can't get as much wood to the mill,
37:20
the wood flow slows down
37:21
and you have a little peak in price.
37:22
So we had several larger timber sales
37:24
that we had scheduled to kind of put out for sale this fall
37:28
and about six weeks ago,
37:30
we've been getting a ton of rain.
37:31
You know, May and June was really wet.
37:34
I think one area I looked at for the month of May,
37:37
we were like 10 inches above, you know,
37:39
our average rainfall.
37:41
And so we started-
37:41
Yeah, we made it all the way through July
37:43
without even really getting dry.
37:44
It was crazy.
37:45
It was crazy.
37:46
It's been raining here every day, man.
37:48
So we started getting these calls like,
37:50
hey, we need wood, we got good prices.
37:53
And so some of those sales that we had planned to put out,
37:56
you know, this fall,
37:57
we went ahead and advertised those and sold those,
37:59
you know, back in kind of June, early July,
38:02
whenever the prices were up.
38:03
So we kind of look for things like that,
38:05
little peaks in the market where we can,
38:07
you know, take advantage of that.
38:09
And, you know, it doesn't always work out that way
38:11
to get the best prices.
38:14
Sometimes you have to sell stuff when you can sell it,
38:18
but that's what we try to do, you know,
38:20
especially if it's something that can be cut in wet weather,
38:22
we try to kind of have those ready
38:24
and put them out when the markets are right.
38:27
Yeah.
38:28
Yeah, that makes sense.
38:29
That's interesting too, to kind of think about the,
38:35
I'm just thinking about the role that the foresters playing.
38:38
Cause I know people wonder about this, you know,
38:41
like you said, people, they come to you
38:44
and don't even know what your role is.
38:46
And they're asking you about that up front,
38:48
but you can start to stack things
38:52
that are being accomplished, you know,
38:55
that not only are you providing some level of protection
38:58
and expertise and making sure that the wood's paid for,
39:01
that's taken off, but also keeping an eye on the markets
39:05
and letting some fine scale adjustment
39:07
that could maximize revenue on the same wood.
39:10
That way, like, you know, you start stacking those things up
39:13
that can make a pretty big difference
39:15
in terms of what people are doing on their land
39:20
and how much they're making in the process.
39:23
Yeah.
39:24
I mean, I think you can look at it as, you know,
39:27
both with consulting foresters and wildlife biologists.
39:31
Yes, it is an expense to work with those people,
39:34
but in the longterm, you know,
39:36
your net revenue may benefit
39:39
from having worked with those folks, you know,
39:41
from the timber side for all the reasons we've just discussed
39:44
and with the wildlife side,
39:45
making sure that you're spending money
39:46
where it's most effectively helping you
39:48
accomplish your objectives.
39:50
I mean, cause all three of us run into landowners
39:52
all the time that are spending lots of money on things
39:54
that really aren't moving the needle.
39:56
So it's not just a cost.
39:58
I mean, it can result in some significant savings too.
40:02
Yeah.
40:03
And then, you know, if you have,
40:06
how much is that additional 20% of gobblers?
40:10
Yeah, put a number, put a value on that.
40:14
Right.
40:15
So start thinking about it that way.
40:16
Yeah, it may have cost you a little bit more,
40:18
but you've got 20% more gobblers,
40:21
might be worth that, right?
40:22
I promise when there's six or seven of them
40:24
screaming at you on an April morning,
40:27
you're not going to be worried about that.
40:29
Yeah, nope.
40:30
That's fine.
40:33
Michael, one of the things that I wanted to ask is,
40:37
I was going to ask you,
40:39
I think with a little bit of a negative slant to it,
40:42
like what are the things that landowners should not do
40:44
when working with a forester?
40:46
The things that like, or barriers,
40:47
the barriers that they create to helping you
40:50
be most effective in your job.
40:51
But I'll flip that around and say, you know,
40:54
what are the things a landowner can do
40:56
to help you be most effective at helping them?
40:59
Right, so like, are there specific things
41:02
that you recommend to landowners that give them heartburn
41:06
or are difficult to overcome,
41:08
or that they're hesitant about?
41:11
I mean, we talked about it for just a second earlier,
41:17
but having the period, like ripping the Band-Aid off,
41:21
especially when it comes to herbicide applications,
41:24
it's hard sometimes because like right now
41:28
is when we're doing a lot of understory spraying
41:30
and people see, you know, hey, I've got this good,
41:34
you know, understory, the habitat looks good.
41:37
And we have intentions to do this, you know,
41:39
kind of a mid rotation treatment.
41:42
Well, they're afraid, hey,
41:44
we're going to wipe that stuff out.
41:45
And then all of a sudden my deer
41:47
aren't going to be here this winter.
41:49
And my turkeys aren't going to be here this spring
41:51
because it's just going to be barren.
41:52
But, you know, that's one thing that I struggle with.
41:55
I've had several conversations lately
41:57
with landowners who are concerned about that,
41:59
that, you know, if we spray now,
42:01
we're going to have a bunch of dead stuff out there
42:03
going into the fall and winter.
42:05
But I just kind of ensure them that we've done this enough.
42:09
If you do that in a pine stand this fall,
42:13
and then followed up with a prescribed burn,
42:16
you're going to love what you see come springtime.
42:19
And it's going to be a whole lot better going forward.
42:23
So that's one thing.
42:24
You know, we struggle and on the timber harvest side
42:28
with, you know, debris piles and expectations of,
42:33
you know, like the best area to set up a loader
42:35
is in the middle of a food plot, you know,
42:38
on top of a knob,
42:39
there's nowhere else to turn an 18 wheeler around.
42:42
And, you know, so we kind of,
42:44
we have to work through things like that sometimes.
42:47
And that's one thing as a consultant is that
42:50
I'm also trying to give the landowner realistic expectations
42:55
and kind of work with him and say, this is,
42:58
I know it's not what you want to see, you know,
43:00
having a loading deck sitting right here in your food plot,
43:03
but that's the reality of it.
43:05
You know, we're going to have to, you know,
43:06
spend a little bit of money burning those piles
43:09
and pushing up debris and getting that back in shape,
43:11
just because in some places there's nowhere else
43:13
to turn a truck around, you know,
43:15
it's going to compact your field.
43:16
And so there's things like that, that, you know,
43:20
sometimes I feel like I'm kind of, you know,
43:22
I'm working for the landowner for their best interest,
43:25
but I also kind of have to tell them, this is, you know,
43:28
this is part of the deal to get to where you want to be.
43:30
We got to work through, you know, these things.
43:33
Yeah. This is the reality of logging.
43:35
Yeah. It's not a, it's not a clean process.
43:38
And, you know, even if, even if you're in a market
43:43
to where you can haul pine tops off of chip and saw
43:45
and saw timber and get those cleaned up,
43:47
you still end up with a lot of debris, you know,
43:50
a lot of log piles.
43:52
And if you got a lot of, you know,
43:55
cankers and stuff at the base of the trees
43:57
that get cut off, you get these big piles of butts,
43:59
you know, that are hard to burn up.
44:01
And that kind of stuff, it's hard to,
44:04
it's hard for landowners to see that, you know,
44:06
until it is sitting there on their property
44:08
and they're like, what do I do now?
44:10
You know, so. Right.
44:11
One good thing that if I have another job close by,
44:14
you know, to be able to take somebody
44:15
and show them an active site and kind of say,
44:18
this is what you can expect your place to look like,
44:20
that's really helpful, isn't it?
44:21
If nobody's ever cut timber before, you know,
44:24
they just don't know what they're going to,
44:26
kind of what they're going to be left with,
44:28
you know, from a mess standpoint.
44:30
Yeah. Do you prefer to have the logging debris
44:34
spread throughout the stand or do you like it piled?
44:37
So my preference is on a first thinning, you know,
44:42
you have a, basically you're cutting the stuff down
44:46
to a two or three inch top a lot of times.
44:48
So on the pulpwoods, on a first thinning,
44:51
I prefer that they spread that back through the rows.
44:54
You can pretty much, if you spread it through the corridors
44:57
and then you run over it,
44:58
it'll just about disappear on a first thinning.
45:02
Now, as you get to older timber where you have larger,
45:06
larger piles of debris, I like to pile those.
45:10
Even if it means cutting out of a bigger area
45:12
around your loading area to pile those,
45:15
I like to pile and try to burn those tops if possible,
45:18
because if you start distributing those big tops
45:21
back out in the stand, it kind of gets to be a mess.
45:24
And then if you want to follow that up
45:26
with the prescribed burn, you know, in the future,
45:28
then you end up having these big, big brush piles
45:31
that are out in the woods that are getting too hot.
45:34
So, but it depends sometimes, it depends on, you know,
45:38
the size of the loading area and, you know,
45:41
what the timber's like and that sort of thing.
45:43
But I typically, first thinning, like to spread the,
45:46
distribute the debris back through the thinning
45:49
and on older stands, try to pile it so we can burn it
45:52
if the landowner wants it to disappear.
45:55
Or you can have me come burn it for you, right?
45:57
Yeah.
45:58
Like that stand we did last year.
46:00
Yeah, yeah, you definitely helped us out.
46:03
That wasn't part of the plan, but it got burned.
46:06
Well, Michael, you guys addressed, you know,
46:11
thinking about landowner barriers,
46:13
but I wanted to ask you directly because it seems like,
46:17
at least in the recent past, this has become pretty common
46:20
across some parts of the South.
46:23
And you mentioned it earlier, what if we're in a bad market
46:27
and we're having a real hard time selling timber,
46:30
like maybe you've got, you know, a good product,
46:33
but you don't have a market, what are, I mean,
46:37
are they just stuck or what are some strategies
46:40
that you might take to move wood?
46:42
Because I think a lot of people find themselves
46:45
in that kind of situation where they would like
46:47
to cut timber because they know that they need to do it
46:50
to meet some wildlife objectives,
46:52
but they're just having a hard time getting it done.
46:55
That's a very good question right now.
46:57
Yeah, so I would say on thinnings,
47:02
like if you have an unthinned stand of pine
47:04
and you're in a tough market area, like right now,
47:07
and one of our mills closed that, you know,
47:12
kind of in one of our areas that we work in.
47:14
And so there's still the demand for pulpwood,
47:17
but the prices have went down.
47:19
And so landowners are going to have some time to, you know,
47:21
adjusting to a very low pulpwood prices.
47:25
You know, we're talking maybe a dollar or $2 a ton
47:28
in the future for pine pulpwood,
47:29
where it used to be eight or $10 a ton.
47:32
That's hard for a landowner to stomach
47:34
if they're used to getting, you know, more money.
47:36
But in those situations,
47:39
I say you gotta take what you can get
47:41
and get your timber thin so that it can be growing,
47:44
it doesn't get stagnant.
47:46
Whether you're trying to manage for wildlife
47:49
or you just want your timber to grow,
47:52
on those unthinned plantations,
47:54
you take what you can get for the stumpage
47:56
when you can get it and get somebody in there to thin it.
48:00
But that's kind of where we are in some market.
48:03
Now, there's certain areas to where, you know,
48:06
the pulpwood prices are still okay
48:08
and you can be a little more selective
48:09
or you may try to wait till you get a little better price.
48:12
But in certain markets where it's hard to get thin,
48:14
you just, you take what you can get
48:16
when you can get a crew there
48:18
and go ahead and get it thin
48:20
and get the canopy open and let your trees grow.
48:22
And we also will package things together, too.
48:26
If we have four or five landowners,
48:29
kind of in a small area where, you know,
48:31
say within a five or 10 mile radius of each other,
48:34
we'll kind of package those together
48:35
because they may have a mix.
48:38
You know, somebody may have a first thinning,
48:39
somebody may have a second thinning,
48:41
you know, they may have different things
48:43
and we can package those together,
48:44
maybe to sell to one buyer, one dealer,
48:47
and maybe that same logger cuts them all
48:50
or maybe they have a couple of loggers, you know,
48:52
that cut them.
48:53
But we've been doing more of that, too,
48:54
in the last few years.
48:55
It's kind of putting little packages together
48:57
of timber sales, you know,
48:59
and trying to work with somebody to get them done.
49:01
That's what it takes sometimes.
49:03
If you have a large enough, you know, property,
49:06
you may be able to package a, you know,
49:08
we'll give you a little bit of clear cut over here,
49:11
we'll give you some better wood over here
49:12
in order to get this first thinning done.
49:14
But if you're talking, if you only own a hundred acres,
49:17
you know, we may, you know, have your property
49:20
and a couple of others kind of in a package
49:22
to try to get, you know, multiple landowners done
49:25
at the same time.
49:25
Because it just depends, the problem with the logging
49:30
and what it's hard for people to understand
49:34
when they see these dumpage prices reports and stuff
49:37
come out, or they hear their neighbor talking about,
49:39
hey, I got this much per ton.
49:41
Is it so property specific?
49:43
You know, it has, there's so many things that are involved
49:47
in what somebody is willing to pay for something
49:49
and when it can get done.
49:51
You know, the access, is it right off the side
49:54
of a paved road that, you know,
49:56
can be accessed all year round?
49:59
Does it have a mile or two of, you know,
50:01
internal woods roads you have to go
50:03
that are gonna have to go down,
50:05
that are gonna have to be maintained?
50:06
It's getting to be more of a problem now
50:10
where people are on limited quota for certain products
50:14
that it's beneficial sometimes to have a timber sale
50:18
that has multiple products, you know, on one stand.
50:20
If you got a first thin in this 90% pine pulpwood,
50:25
sometimes people won't, you know, they just say,
50:27
I can't do it, I'm sorry.
50:29
Because they need to cut 50 loads of wood a week to survive.
50:33
They may only have 30 woods, 30 loads a week
50:36
of pine pulpwood quota at the mill.
50:39
So on a Wednesday, they're done.
50:42
We've hauled all of our quota.
50:43
We don't have anything to do the next two days.
50:45
And so it just, it really depends on, you know,
50:48
what market you're in and kind of how wet it is outside.
50:53
And there's just a lot of factors that go into it.
50:56
And that's what having a forester
50:58
that knows your local markets
51:00
is gonna be really beneficial
51:01
to kind of help you understand all those.
51:04
Yeah.
51:05
All those things.
51:06
Yeah, I feel like these days in the deep South,
51:08
especially, like if you can get pine pulpwood
51:11
to pay its way off the stump and off your property,
51:13
you're doing pretty good.
51:16
Yeah, I agree.
51:17
Yeah, there's, like I said,
51:20
there's still some areas
51:20
that have a pretty good pulpwood market,
51:22
but there's also some that, you know,
51:24
you basically are having to give it away to get it done.
51:26
And in those cases, if you find somebody that can do it,
51:30
you take what you can get and get at things.
51:32
If you look at the last year,
51:34
we had this really bad Southern Pine Beetle outbreak
51:37
across Mississippi and Alabama,
51:39
and they had, the Alabama Forester Commission
51:43
has a GIS map with all the locations
51:45
that they detected from the air.
51:49
And you start zooming in and looking at those,
51:52
a high percentage of those pine beetle infestations
51:55
are in unthinned pine plantation.
51:58
I mean, it's, I was scrolling, you know,
52:00
looking Northwest Alabama, Central Alabama,
52:03
it's probably 80 or 90% of the outbreaks you see
52:06
here in unthinned plantations
52:08
that people have either not gotten thinned by choice
52:13
or they haven't, you know,
52:15
been able to get somebody to thin those, that's where.
52:17
Yeah, I hear that so much now, especially in that area.
52:21
Yeah.
52:22
And people asking me for, what do I do here?
52:28
It was definitely an important problem to deal with.
52:32
One thing I did want to ask about, Michael,
52:35
was at first thin and residual basal area.
52:40
You know, a lot of folks get nervous about going too low
52:45
because we're talking about obviously like for, you know,
52:48
forest management for wildlife.
52:50
And with that, a lot of times we're thinning to basal areas
52:52
that are lower than what would typically be recommended
52:55
for just timber production, right?
52:57
So at that first thin,
53:00
if a landowner wants to go to a lower basal area
53:03
than is, you know, tradition for the forest industry,
53:07
are there concerns there about the stand
53:12
and the stand's health?
53:14
And particularly, I'm thinking about wind throw, you know,
53:17
and how do you handle that?
53:19
Yeah, so if I had a preference,
53:22
what I would prefer to do is thin a little bit more
53:25
traditionally on the first thinning
53:27
and then let those trees recover
53:30
and let the crowns fill out a little bit more
53:32
and let them get a little more stability
53:34
in the root system and everything,
53:35
and then hit them a little heavier at a second thinning.
53:38
That would be my preference.
53:40
Right.
53:41
And it kind of depends too,
53:42
if you have a stand that has, you know,
53:46
pretty high live crown ratio,
53:48
when you go in there to first thin,
53:49
I feel a little bit better about thinning
53:51
it a little heavier.
53:52
You know, sometimes these stands
53:53
that are overdue for thinning,
53:55
you'll see they have just a little tiny,
53:58
just a little tiny top, you know.
53:59
A little Q-tip top.
54:00
Yeah, a little small green top,
54:03
and they're real small.
54:04
You know, the average diameter's
54:05
six or seven inches in the stand.
54:07
If you go in there and thin something like that,
54:10
that's, let's say it's 50 or 60 feet tall
54:14
with a really small crown,
54:15
and you go in there and hit that really heavy
54:17
on the first thinning,
54:18
you're gonna have a lot of wind throw.
54:20
Mm-hmm.
54:20
And some people are okay with that.
54:22
You know, some people are like,
54:24
hey, that's fine.
54:25
If I end up with a 50 basal area
54:27
and some of them fall over,
54:29
then that's not a big deal to me.
54:30
But, you know, you just have to know that
54:33
going into it, that if you thin that too heavy
54:36
on the first thinning, you know,
54:38
ideally, my preference would be, you know,
54:41
maybe a 70 to 80 basal area in that range
54:44
on the first thinning,
54:45
and then five years, four, five, six years later,
54:48
come back a second thinning,
54:49
and then take it down to whatever,
54:51
you know, if it's a 50, 60 or lower.
54:55
If you think you're in a place where you have that,
54:57
that is an option to you.
54:58
But like, if you're having a really hard time
55:00
moving the trees,
55:02
then that may be a situation
55:04
where you think about going lower at the first cut
55:06
in case we can't get them back, right?
55:08
Yeah.
55:09
Yeah, it just sticks up, you know,
55:10
that there's some risk associated with it.
55:12
Mm-hmm.
55:14
Yeah.
55:15
Well, Michael, we're getting close to an hour,
55:20
and we want to be respectful of your time,
55:22
because I know you got a lot to do.
55:23
I'm good.
55:24
What have we failed to-
55:26
I'm here for it.
55:26
Yeah.
55:29
What have we failed to ask you?
55:31
Because, you know, you've got a lot of experience
55:32
working with folks.
55:34
What do people need to know that we haven't asked you?
55:37
I don't know.
55:41
I think there's a whole lot of aspects in forest management
55:44
that we deal with,
55:45
and I do think it's important to have somebody
55:49
kind of working on your behalf.
55:50
Because you talk about,
55:52
we've talked mostly about timber harvesting.
55:55
You know, we haven't really gotten into
55:57
herbicide prescriptions.
55:58
You know, if you're doing kind of a mid-story,
56:01
under-story treatment,
56:03
or if you're doing site prep treatments
56:04
with herbicide prescriptions.
56:07
I feel like we need to have you back
56:08
for a whole other episode with that.
56:11
You know, and then you talk about seedling genetics,
56:13
you know, whether you're going to species,
56:16
you're going to plant longleaf, loblolly, or shortleaf.
56:19
And if it's loblolly, do you want third gen,
56:21
open pollinated or mass control pollinated seedlings?
56:25
And what spacing are you going to plant those on
56:28
that say, if you want some timber production,
56:31
but you still have wildlife as a secondary objective,
56:34
you probably don't want to plant 700 trees per acre.
56:37
I don't recommend that for timber production now either.
56:41
I mean, we're going a lot lower density,
56:43
but you know, those are things to think about.
56:45
So I feel like invasive species control mean,
56:48
I don't know, when we're out there on the property,
56:51
we see all these things.
56:52
You know, we're out there looking at a timber harvest
56:54
or we see kudzu or cogongrass or whatever invasive species.
56:59
I was on a place the other day that gave me a lot of anxiety
57:03
because I counted so many different invasives.
57:05
You know, it was like everything you can think about
57:08
when we had a Chinese tallow tree, kudzu,
57:13
Japanese climbing fern, giant reed, Chinese privet.
57:19
I mean, all within eyesight, you know,
57:22
and that's the kind of stuff that kind of gives me anxiety
57:24
when I'm out there thinking about
57:25
how are we going to deal with all this stuff?
57:27
But I mean, I think just having a forester looking out
57:31
for your property on your behalf
57:33
and seeing those kinds of things
57:35
and helping you make decisions,
57:36
because there's a lot that goes into, you know,
57:40
financially, you know, it can have a big impact
57:43
on the decisions you make and going forward,
57:46
what are you going to leave, you know, for your family?
57:49
You know, if you're thinking about,
57:50
say somebody that's getting older
57:51
and I hear a lot of times,
57:53
well, you know, I'm not going to see these trees
57:55
if I plant these things back now or whatever.
57:57
But I mean, I think that's important
57:59
to kind of look forward, you know.
58:01
What we do, we're looking at a 25 year, you know,
58:04
plus rotation.
58:05
And so you're planting and managing timber now
58:08
for the next, you know, 25 plus years.
58:11
So I think it's important to have somebody
58:12
that's kind of looking out for you
58:14
and helping you make those decisions
58:16
and, you know, working through.
58:17
But there's a lot involved with forest management
58:21
as a whole.
58:22
You know, there's a lot that I think we do.
58:25
And I don't think that landowners, you know,
58:27
we get like I mentioned earlier about people asking,
58:29
what do we do for timber sales?
58:31
But, you know, there's a lot of people out there
58:34
that, you know, do site prep and planning work.
58:37
But, you know, understanding those prescriptions
58:41
and understanding what the prices are
58:42
and the different application methods and everything.
58:45
It's just good to have somebody that's kind of on your side,
58:48
you know, helping you walk through all that.
58:51
What are some things, Michael, that people can,
58:55
is there a way that they could help determine
58:59
who would be a good forester?
59:01
Like how can they vet these people
59:02
or maybe some of the questions they might ask?
59:05
Yeah, that's a good question.
59:06
I mean, you know, I would recommend like
59:09
the Association of Consulting Foresters
59:11
has a Find a Forester, you know, page there
59:14
where you can go and you can search
59:15
for kind of your county and state.
59:17
And it'll have a list of people.
59:20
The Forestry Commission also has a page there
59:23
that has a tab that you can go to,
59:25
like Alabama Forestry Commission,
59:26
and you can select consulting forester
59:29
or whatever you're looking for specifically.
59:32
I was asked the same question on a panel one time
59:37
with a forest landowners meeting.
59:39
And, you know, my answer to the question at that time was,
59:44
you know, find somebody that your friend uses
59:49
that you know, like a personal reference.
59:52
I find that that goes a long way
59:54
with establishing that relationship.
59:57
If somebody calls me and they said,
59:58
hey, I was referred to you by this person
1:00:00
and they're real happy, then there's that trust,
1:00:03
you know, all of a sudden,
1:00:05
without me having to try to prove myself
1:00:07
or, you know, my understanding of forestry,
1:00:10
like there's a connection there already.
1:00:12
And so that already, if you can ask a friend
1:00:15
at who they're using, find somebody, you know,
1:00:19
that you know locally and ask them who their forester is
1:00:22
and if they're happy with them.
1:00:23
I mean, that seems to me like the best situation possible.
1:00:27
And if you don't have a connection like that
1:00:29
and don't know who to ask,
1:00:31
then you can go to those resources
1:00:33
and make a few phone calls and, you know,
1:00:36
tell a forester what your objectives are
1:00:39
and, you know, see if it seems like it's a good fit.
1:00:43
I mean, if it definitely doesn't hurt to ask some questions
1:00:46
and find out, you know, if they're familiar
1:00:48
with the markets, you know, in your area,
1:00:50
tell them, hey, I'm interested in turkey or deer management
1:00:53
or just timber production
1:00:54
and make sure that's something that they're interested in.
1:00:56
There are foresters out there that, you know,
1:00:59
they're more geared for timber production.
1:01:02
You know, they're not as interested in helping
1:01:05
with wildlife management.
1:01:07
And, you know, that's something I think from,
1:01:09
just from hunting and enjoying, you know, being out.
1:01:14
I love to turkey hunt and be in the woods.
1:01:17
And I just, that's all I've studied, you know,
1:01:20
when I decided, made the decision to go into forestry.
1:01:22
I've studied the wildlife management aspect,
1:01:26
even though I don't have a degree.
1:01:28
And I feel like that's kind of where I always lean towards.
1:01:30
And that's just the landowners that I've kind of attracted
1:01:33
over the past few years,
1:01:34
just because that's what I like to do.
1:01:36
But just find somebody that feels like a good fit
1:01:40
and maybe get a recommendation.
1:01:42
Yeah.
1:01:43
I think this is a good opportunity too,
1:01:45
to just throw out a PSA.
1:01:46
We've got a lot of younger listeners
1:01:48
that are thinking about career paths and stuff like that.
1:01:50
And they're always, you remember this, Michael,
1:01:53
like back when you were in school,
1:01:54
there seems to be this divide
1:01:56
between foresters and wildlife biologists.
1:01:58
Because at almost every institution,
1:02:00
they're in the same program,
1:02:01
you know, right next to each other every day.
1:02:03
But the further I get from school,
1:02:07
it's actually the more I work with foresters, not the less.
1:02:10
Yeah, I agree.
1:02:11
I mean, it's very important to establish relationships
1:02:15
across that aisle, so to speak.
1:02:17
Yeah.
1:02:18
Most of the landowners, I was just thinking about that,
1:02:21
most of the landowners that I have worked with in the past,
1:02:25
they have me there for wildlife.
1:02:26
I do have a forester degree also,
1:02:29
but they have a forester on, you know,
1:02:33
that they work with already also.
1:02:35
And it's very common that I am working with that forester
1:02:40
on what the actual final recommendations are
1:02:44
for management of the property.
1:02:46
So, I mean, that's super common.
1:02:47
And I definitely think, you know,
1:02:50
I obviously have a biased opinion,
1:02:52
but I think that's important for landowners
1:02:55
because they're getting good information
1:02:57
from people that specialize in that,
1:03:00
and we're looking out for the landowner.
1:03:02
Yeah, yeah.
1:03:03
I think we can pretty safely say
1:03:06
the vast majority of professionals are doing that.
1:03:10
You know, they're trying to look out for people.
1:03:13
But, you know, you always hear horror stories.
1:03:15
It was actually, I was in North Carolina like a week ago,
1:03:20
I guess, since we're recording this,
1:03:22
and there was a forester that, you know,
1:03:26
was speaking to the audience,
1:03:27
and that was the same line of questioning that came up
1:03:31
was what we just talked about.
1:03:32
Like, how do I know who?
1:03:35
And they had, this particular landowner
1:03:38
had a bad experience.
1:03:40
And she was like, what do I need to do?
1:03:45
How can I vet people beforehand?
1:03:47
Because once it's done, it's done.
1:03:50
So I think that, you know,
1:03:52
that's definitely something that's important.
1:03:54
I'm glad we covered it.
1:03:56
Yeah, well, for a lot of smaller landowners,
1:04:00
you know, if they're clear-cutting timber,
1:04:02
it may be like a once-in-a-lifetime thing
1:04:04
or a couple times-in-a-lifetime.
1:04:06
It's a pretty big decision.
1:04:07
I think that, you know, a lot of people don't take lightly,
1:04:10
and they want to make sure they're getting
1:04:12
as much as they can for it
1:04:13
and make sure somebody's looking after them.
1:04:16
Sure.
1:04:17
It certainly could transform your property
1:04:19
for the rest of your life.
1:04:21
Yeah.
1:04:21
And potentially for multiple ancestors' lives.
1:04:25
Yeah.
1:04:26
Yeah.
1:04:28
Well, good.
1:04:30
I felt like that was a pretty strong episode.
1:04:33
I think a lot of our listeners will appreciate that.
1:04:35
Yeah, definitely really direct.
1:04:37
And hopefully for everybody out there listening,
1:04:40
you know, we're trying to address topics
1:04:44
that you bring to us.
1:04:44
This is another one that comes up really commonly.
1:04:47
Will and I have some ideas for doing some other topic areas
1:04:51
that have come from listener feedback
1:04:53
and just our own thoughts about it.
1:04:56
But, you know, we are trying to go down this vein
1:05:00
to talk about some practical things,
1:05:04
like how do I get this done?
1:05:06
Because it seems like that's coming up a lot.
1:05:07
People are getting in that headspace
1:05:10
that they have a pretty good idea.
1:05:11
Okay, I've got these things to accomplish,
1:05:15
but now they're wondering, how do we start?
1:05:18
The logistics of it.
1:05:19
Yeah.
1:05:20
The implementation.
1:05:21
Right, the practical part.
1:05:22
So thanks, Michael, for coming on.
1:05:26
That was really great. Yeah, thank you.
1:05:27
And thanks everybody out there for listening.
1:05:30
We really appreciate it.
1:05:31
We appreciate all the feedback.
1:05:33
Will, you brought up the other day,
1:05:35
well, maybe yesterday,
1:05:36
we haven't told anybody in a while,
1:05:38
but if you haven't had a chance,
1:05:41
please go and leave us a rating.
1:05:43
Helps the algorithm.
1:05:45
It's good that you asked for that
1:05:46
coming off of this episode
1:05:47
and not one with just me and you
1:05:49
talking about BS for 30 minutes
1:05:52
before we get into anything with substance.
1:05:54
Well, you know, I've gotten a few comments
1:05:56
saying people like that,
1:05:57
but I've also gotten some that people are like,
1:05:59
y'all need to get to the point.
1:06:01
They're both right.
1:06:04
Yep, yep, they are.
1:06:06
But yeah, we really appreciate it.
1:06:08
I think that was great.
1:06:10
And thanks everybody out there for listening.
1:06:13
Wild Turkey Science is part of
1:06:18
the Natural Resources University podcast network
1:06:21
and is made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow,
1:06:23
a grassroots organization dedicated to the wild turkey.
1:06:26
To learn more about TFT,
1:06:28
check out turkeysfortomorrow.org.
1:06:30
Turkeys for Tomorrow.
1:06:32
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1:06:34
you