pine trees

[heehaw]

"They grow slow, so nobody much plants them anymore": we have to be talking about different trees: the loblolly grows extremely fast, an the so called improved loblolly is even faster: just look at the growth rings: they are seldom planted much over @50 miles north of Russellville: they do not take icey weather well at all, so folks lose mature or almost mature trees a lot. i have noticed with these i planted, the ones in the middle row, are just as tall as the ones on the outer rows, but half the diameter, so they would probably eventually make some decent lumber: much narrower growth rings: i mistakenly bought about 6, 2x6's from a local mill a couple years ago, the mistake was in not looking at the growth rings: i finally burned 4 of those 6 a couple weeks ago, they were stored in the dry, out of the sun also, an they warped an twisted like a pretzel: the short leaf/needle pine is much slower growing an makes excellent lumber.
heehaw

[tallyho8]

Yes, Loblolly pine is perhaps the fastest growing pine and this is why the tree plantations plant it for timber. Just because it is the most economical (cheapest) source for lumber, surely not the best lumber.

My home is made from lumber from a torn-down plantation home on the River Road that was hundreds of years old. Most of the wood is red heart pine. I am not sure what variety it is. Termites don't like it and it won't rot easily like yellow pine. The growth rings are so close together you can barely count them. I think I could use two 2x4s as ramps to drive my tractor onto my trailer because it is such tough wood.

You can not buy lumber of this high a quality anymore but there is a lumber yard in New Orleans that gets lumber from old torn down homes and re-dimensions the lumber making it like new. But their lumber sells for much more than new lumber.

[czechsonofagun]

I like pine as wood, but I dont mill them with the chainsaw anymore, too much work not worth the gain.
One thing about pine is it's the first tree to go down in storm or winter or winter storm. Not planting new ones for those that went down in my place.

[woodchuckie]

There are loggers who recover the old longleaf pine out of the rivers where they sank during the days when logs were transported by floating them down the rivers. They bring them lots of money and cost a lot. You can find it on-line as flooring among other things.

Over the last thirty years I have had loblolly pine cut and have received over two hundred thousand dollars to supplement my income from a tire plant. That's less than seven thousand a year but it sure has come in handy as down payments on houses , buying new vehicles, and quite a few vacation trips we couldn't have taken without it.

I have replanted each time. The last time with longleaf because they grow good in my area and they are resistant to pine beetles and other diseases. I have one more area to cut and I'll be through. None of the cuttings were plantation. They were mixed age pine and hardwood, with pine always bringing the higher price. I have set aside an area of hardwood for recreation and I'll leave it up to the children to do something with that. I hope to leave it so they won't have to do anything except have it cut.

[smfcpacfp]

Hey, I resent the rap on pines. They look beautiful in the winter with snow on their bows. I have about 6,000 of those suckers on my property: jackpines (native and the most hideous tree god ever created), Norway and white pines (which I mostly planted). Pines grow well in poor soil with cold temperatures. When you dig down a few inches in my soil, it is like the beach for the next 300 feet. We do have some native maples and a few oaks, foresters say that this will eventually be a hardwood forest, long after I am gone.

The needles on pine trees are very acidic, so every so often, I need to put lime on my small yard in the big pine forest.

My wife and I cut down, limbed and cut up a dozen or so trees last week (all jackpine except for two small Norway pines which had planted ) in preparation for having a pole building built. We will burn the pine when it is dry.

[MossRoad]

Originally Posted by whistlepig

Are you mowing around these stinky pine trees? I have two hundred I mow around. I have to scrape pine tar off my tractor when I get done mowing. In the spring the rosin will choke me to death and I'm not allergic to anything. I didn't plant the darn things. They came with the place. I consider a pine tree a weed also. They have no roots and they will fall over and die if a sparrow lands on the wrong side. I would never plant one.

We had the rows of trees side sprayed when they were planted to keep the weeds down. After that I mowed between the rows 2-3 times a year for about 5 years. After that they were so thick the tractor would not fit between the rows and the trees had choked out the weeds. Now, I drive the tractor under them! It is like a tunnel in there. As for no roots and sparrows... ours are pretty sturdy and support a flock of about 100 turkeys roosting each night.

[Uncle Doug]

Originally Posted by heehaw

nothing wrong with the trees: i did do a little checking an i could haul them to a mill an get $35 per ton: do you know how many trees it takes to make a ton: an how much work you have to put in to load an haul them for $35. i've even stopped pulp wood trucks, loaded with pines that are a lot smaller than what i have, an they say they only cut on company land: so basicly the timber co is paying them to thin their trees:
heehaw

What you want to look for if you want to sell the pine is a small pulp wood operation. They are harder to find but are actually easier on the land. They maybe only a 2-3 man operation and use a single tractor with 1 small truck.

Growing up in East Texas I loved the smell of pines but I knew by the time I was a teen what a PIA they were for homeowners. We have a friend who moved down here from "up north". Fisrt thing the did was plant lots of pine trees. No 15 years later they have the same issues,

[dmccarty]

In my area you make for more money with pine per acre than hardwood. When we sold some timber both pine and hardwood, mainly oak, brought in $400 per MBF. BUT more pine grows per acre than the oak. The pines also had more marketable timber per tree than the oak.

After all of the hurricanes the most likely tree to fall were hardwoods. Our oaks are very shallow rooted where as the pines have a tap root that seems to be connected to China. Ice storms would break off branches of both trees but the hardwoods stay up in the tree waiting to make my wife a widow. The pine branches just fall to the ground. The only large pine I had that fell in a 24 inch snow storm had a slight lean on it from Fran.

SMALL pines will take a beating in ice and snow storms. Or land had a road built up the middle that had not been maintained in 10-20 years. Small trees, mainly pines, had grown up in the road so that it was not passable by car. I had finally cleared them out of one lane of travel with a brush cutter and chain saw. There were still small trees on the side of the road...

A snow storm dropped close to 24 inches of snow. The road was impassable again due to the small trees that had bent over and been pulled down by the snow fall. It was easier to just walk in the woods than walk up the road. Small diameter pines do make a mess in ice/snow storms. We still have some pines along the road that are under 6 inches in diameter. They are leaning and in another big snow/ice event they will block the road.

Around here they thin the pine forests for pulp wood with a three wheeled cutter/buncher. It drives into the pine planting just cutting the trees and collecting them in its arms. Seem pretty efficient.

I see big pines as big money! Though the last time I check pine was $200 per MBF which is half what we earned.

Later,
Dan

[heehaw]

finally found someone that wants the trees bad enough that they will cut the rest of them. i still have to pile the brush an burn it, but at least they will do a big part of the work, for the trees.
heehaw