I was reading this guys story who has 400 acres of mature pine trees in South Carolina and has been for a number of years but he makes more bagging the pine needles per acre than mature trees will sell for... He says each acres worth of needles are making him 1200.00 per acre for mulch around plants and flowers. It so happens bugs and pest does not like pine needles.

Easy money for all he has to do is bag them but they do have to stand guard for thieves are getting worse as each day passes.....And here we are with a few southern yellow pine trees and yes the needles are a problem plus the big cones almost makes the Honda motor on the mower want to throw up every time it has to chew one of those cones to pieces...

    And no we never knew the bugs were missing around the base of those big pine trees.......so the more trees that don't go to market makes the ones that do get there much higher priced !!!!!!

   And Paul Harvey would add, that is the rest of the story.

That sounds like the decimal point has been moved!

From the operations that I have seen it is a pretty labor intensive business, but even adding in monies the guy might make on hunting leases I doubt that he could gross $1200/acre.

Just mho Jess.  How is the lake level out there this year?

I guess the Southern Pine Beetle didn't hear that story.

 

https://www.treefarmsystem.org/SPBwhenbeetlesattack

 

 

I know a lot of people who sell the timber off their land and never heard of anyone raking the straw. Just raising timber is a science and lots of work at times. They have to plant after logging, then thin when they get up to 3-4 foot and space 2-4. Then maybe more thinning and pulpwood thinning. And after 20 to 30 years saw logs. I know all that is not accurate but close, which only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. The yields in the bank have been going down ever since Katrina. Sometimes the mills are full and will not even take logs.

 

Now talk about waste you should see all the good sawlogs left in the field . Usually have flaws like wire, lighting damage or in some cases rot. And there is is the big one the log is too large for mill saws.