Planting programs of the 1980s may lead to tree glut

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Posted 9:32AM on Sunday, September 15, 2002

ALBANY - Pine harvesting throughout the South, sparked by government programs that paid landowners to plant trees in the 1980s, will flood the market with timber over the next 15 years and could mean lower prices for tree farmers. Programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program, launched in 1985, paid landowners to plant trees on marginal cropland or erodible land. The programs led to a profusion of pine plantations across the South, the nation's largest timber-producing region. Marshall Thomas, president of F&W Forestry Services Inc. of Albany, said wood from the 32 million acres of pines that were planted since 1985 is already flowing into pulp and lumber mills. ``We already have a glut of pulpwood,'' Thomas said. ``What I'm forecasting is a glut of small saw timber.'' F&W provides management, timber sales, appraisal and consulting services to private landowners in nine Southern states. Loblolly and slash pine, two of the region's common varieties, reach full maturity and their highest value at about 25 to 35 years, when they are large enough to be sliced into first-rate lumber. Since an acre of trees will produce only so much wood, landowners and foresters try to anticipate supply-and-demand trends so that they can maximize profits from the sale of trees. They can have lots of skinny trees, for pulpwood or wood chips that are bonded together in composite boards, or they can opt for fewer, but stouter, trees with more valuable wood. As pine trees grow, there are occasional thinnings. Younger trees that are removed can be sold as pulpwood or ``chip-and-saw,'' a type used for pulpwood or lumber. That provides income for landowners while they wait for the remaining trees to mature. Full-size trees are the most valuable as ``saw timber'' for lumber. Thomas predicts the harvest from millions of acres of pine plantations will have the greatest price impact on pulpwood and chip-and-saw. ``Older, larger and high-quality trees for lumber manufacture should be the least adversely impacted with a scarcity of prime saw logs even likely,'' he said. ``A lot of the large saw logs that we're harvesting now are coming from plantations that were established during the 1960s and '70s and from natural stands. We're slowly cutting through that age class of trees.'' Pulpwood available for harvest is expected to decline over the next few years, but the volume is still likely to exceed consumption, he said. Pulpwood prices are severely depressed throughout the South, in part, by a glut of trees from the first thinning of trees planted under the Conservation Reserve Program, said Thomas, who thinks Southern states should spend money to increase the popularity of the regional wood. ``We need to market Southern pine like they market milk, Vidalia onions or beef,'' he said. ``Southern pine is grown in an environmentally friendly manner, compared with the rest of the world. Some countries use exotic species. We use domestic species. We need to get that message out.'' David Hoge, a forester with the USDA's Forest Service in Atlanta, said prices are also down because of less competition for wood, thanks to business consolidations, relocations offshore and mill closings. With fewer companies bidding for the wood, some landowners may find it harder to sell their timber, he said. ``But basically, timber is still a good investment, although your payback period may be lengthened'' he said. Leasing the land for quail, deer and turkey hunting is one way to diversify and help pay the taxes on the land, he said. ``Yes we did do a lot of tree planting under CRP and other programs,'' Hoge said. ``A lot of it is coming on the market about the same time. There's also an abundant supply coming from offshore. ``When you put all that together, there does appear to be a lot of wood ... and with the abundant supply comes a decline in prices usually.''