Do they buy Alder for pulpwood?

[RobVG]

I have just under 2 acres of Alder. It's 15 years old and 40'-50' tall. They average about 6" in diameter.

Do they have any value?

I'd like them gone now but in a few years they'll be good for firewood if nothing esle.

[ATCOEQUIP]

It's common to make smoked salmon with Alder wood. Is it possible someone might be interested in purchasing it for smoking. :beatsme

[RobVG]

I've used it myself for smoking fish and it is good.

Problem is, Alder grows in the Northwest like fuzz on a peach- pretty easy to get.

[John C.]

Last I checked there was a pretty fair market for alder pulp. Problem is you got to have lots of it to get the interest of someone who might thing of buying it. One truck load isn't enough, you need twenty.

It is prime fire wood when cut, split, seasoned properly and delivered to the unsupecting city folk in Bellevue.

Otherwise it is just another weed that has to be rooted out before a person can develop their property.

[RobVG]

Actually got good money when I had my house site logged. But they were 12 to 14 inches.

I'd rather farm tomatoes or something rather than tend weeds.

[spitzair]

We sold 13 truckloads a few years ago and got pretty good coin for them, they went to a hardwood mill that sold the lumber they cut from them for furniture, the fellow says that alder is really great for immitating other wood species, ie depending on what colour they stain it is what species of wood they market it as... A light hue of this and it becomes cherry, a darker stain of that and they call it oak... But our trees were in the 16-24" sizes and some were even bigger... And after we got the marketable logs out we still had more firewood than we knew what to do with...

[RobVG]

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a 24" alder!

Check out the furniture at Fred Meyer's, a lot of it is alder. Looks good even unfinished.

[imabigdave]

I seem to remember the last time that we sold alder, it went to the mill that we sold our cedar to. They used the cedar (and presumably the alder) to cut "pencil blanks" out of to later be manufactured into pencils. I'm sure this is regional, but I'd guess that current pulpwood prices (given what lumber prices are) are so low that on your scale, it'd cost you more to haul it than you'd get for pulp. Maybe check with some local firewood cutters, see if they'd be interested in buying the trees. A lot of guys around here buy self-loader loads of firewood logs, usually can get anywhere from 6-10 cords per load depending on the logs.

[-3Doc]

:)http://www.chomper.net/video/chomper-56k.wmv
Buy one of these and make some easy money!!

[jm62]

That is about the slickest piece of equipment I have ever seen!!! Need one of those in Ks where fire wood is selling for up to $415 per cord. That machine could make up $1260 per hour that gooooood money when it comes to cutting firewood. I don't know what that machine costs but think of the possibilities ?????????;););)

[imabigdave]

between 33 and $46k according to their page. What I've heard from firewood processor owners is that their primary problem is supply of enough logs to keep it working to justify ownership. If you're cutting that much wood in an hour/day, you're also going to have additional marketing challenges unless you're just using this to fire your crew.

I'd always thought that the downside to the processors that I'd seen is that the operator has to tell the machine everything to do, so that you either need a second person feeding logs to it, or it sits idle while you replenish the logs. The quick setup time of this one is also a major upside....I like the no sawdust thing too.

[jm62]

I went to http://www.chomper.net/ and they offer 4 different machines. They have found a niche and are in a position to go a long ways. Simply awesome!!!!!!:notworthy