[Rick Alger]

Returning to silviculture, I would like to share thoughts on working spruce/fir stands with other folks cutting in the northern forest – if such there be.

In my experience there are two commonly applied silvicultural treatments, patch cuts and single tree selection thinning. Both tend to yeild a high pulp to log ratio on the landing.

Anybody found a way to squeeze more value out of these treatments than the standard return on pulp and logs?

If you haven’t, have you found a way to increase production enough to take in say $250 a day?

[Rick Alger]

What I saw looks great, but it wouldn’t fully load. I’m on dial up so it’s probably my problem, but anyway I thought I’d let you know.

[Rick Alger]

What I saw looks great, but it wouldn’t fuuly load. I’m on dial up so it’s probably my problem, but anyway I thought I’d let you know.

[Rick Alger]

Hi Mitch,

I agree it’s best to forget about back in the day, but I’ll admit to handloading four foot wood on those six wheel three cord trucks.

I’m from Milan, NH. It’s between Berlin and Errol. Used to be able to drive up to the Brown Company scale shack with a pickup load of wood and drive away with a check for $14.

You are right about chippers if this area is any indication. The big boys are knifing the woods at an incredible rate. But no contracts for the little guys.

By the way, you can chip blowdowns and punky stuff. I have a friend with a chipper operation who has chipped for me several times and is planning to do so again. He has chipped 8 foot stuff and treelength. There is a government program that is paying him extra for biomass fuel. Might be worth talking to the guy up the road especially if he’s going to pass right by when he moves out. My guy said he thinks he’ll be able to pay $13 a ton if I have it all in one tight pile. He needs around 35 tons for a load. Pathetic money, but a way to market junk and pulp without a contract.

[Rick Alger]

Mitch,

I’m not Carl, but I run into the problem you asked about quite often. Usually it’s the leavings that the truck doesn’t get when it cleans up a yard- couple cords of pulp or four/five hundred feet of logs.

When i’m too far from a concentration yard, I haul it to the next job and start the new pile with that wood. (Haven’t had any issues over stumpage yet.)

If it has turned or stained badly I bring it home to a pile I’m building for the chipper guy to deal with later.

[Rick Alger]

Yeah, the energy expended came out pretty close in my example also.

I agree that a good teamster in good wood can do way more than 1.6 mbf a day. The winter I cut for Les Barden, he averaged 3.6 mbf a day over 55 working days. On one good day he did over 6.

But for my example I was offering what I thought would be a reasonable average under average conditions over time.

As far as the hourly rate goes, I’m still in the John Henry mode-though not by choice. It is indeed difficult to sell silvicultural services if you are not a forester. But there is a light beginning to flicker at the end of the tunnel.

[Rick Alger]

Carl,

I oversimplified the pay/labor cost thingy. The last I knew a grapple skidder employee around here was paid in the $12 to $17per hr. range. Throw in workers comp, fica etc and you come out around $20 as a labor cost to the employer.

The teamster labor rate I ballparked as equal to the skidder labor cost. After overhead, I don’t generally make that much myself but I gather guys like you and Jason, and others do.

Geoff,

I believe the logging pay out west is considerably better than in northern NH. I hired a guy to twitch for me this fall for $8 an hour, and he was happy to get it. I know we’re not the gold standard, but for discussion purposes I like to stick with what I know.

p.s. I am in no way advocating for machinery. I’m just trying to point out something that occurred to me regarding the “efficiency” of head-to-head competition with machines.

[Rick Alger]

My earlier post disappeared, so here is another. My guestimates – A small grapple skidder hauling from a feller buncher on a 500 ft average skid could produce between 10 and 20 mbf in a day. A team hauling already fallen wood the same distance would produce between one and two mbf a day. That puts the horses ahead on energy consumption.

One complication is labor costs. If the guy driving the skidder is making, say $20 an hour, and he skids 16 mbf, his labor cost per mbf is $10. If the guy driVIng the team is making $20 an hour and he skids 1.6 mbf, his labor cost per mbf is $100.

[Rick Alger]

My earlier post disappeared, so here is another. My guestimates – A small grapple skidder hauling from a feller buncher on a 500 ft average skid could produce between 10 and 20 mbf in a day. A team hauling already fallen wood the same distance would produce between one and two mbf a day. That puts the horses ahead on energy consumption.

One complication is labor costs. If the guy driving the skidder is making, say $20 an hour, and he skids 16 mbf, his labor cost per mbf is $10. If the guy driving the team is making $20an hour and he skids 1.6 mbf, his labor cost per mbf is $100. I’m no fan of machinery, but it’s pretty clear energy savings won’t make up the difference in labor cost.

[Rick Alger]

Aspen is not a favored species in New England so I can’t offer anything specific. I have forwarded horselogged wood with a cable skidder and found it to be a significant economic advantage on long skids.

Simon has experience with a CTL horsedrawn forwarder. Perhaps he’ll chime in.

[Rick Alger]

Scott,

Have you had ny luck developing your cost calculator?

[Rick Alger]

I have worked on a chip job, but I don’t recommend it. The loads went out at about 35 tons. The logging company got $28.00 a ton. Not much value added there.

[Rick Alger]

Thanks, Carl. I follow you on the value of thinning. I do a lot of it in s/f stands, usually 30 percent removal, favoring spruce and avoiding areas of established regen. Age of the stands around 50 years. Average dbh 9″. Somebody elses prescription.

Now as I see it, there are values in the prescription and there are values in the method used to follow out the prescription.

What would you guess the economic value of the above prescription to be?

What would you guess the added value of accomplishing this by single tree selection with no bole scarring, groung compaction, residual damage etc would be?

Stumpage at say $110 per mbf.

[Rick Alger]

Carl,

Would you please give some examples of how you add value to the “forestland holding” while extracting wood, and would you also explain how you quantify that value for the landowner?

[Rick Alger]

Scott,

Thanks for digging this up. It’s not a common occurrence, but it does make you think about the advisability of insurance.

On a related note, can you think of a way to admit Logger’s Wife to this discussion?

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