From the Fields - George Hollister

By George Hollister, Mendocino County forester

Things are going pretty well. This time of year, people are getting everything wrapped up for the season and getting ready for winter. On our tree farm on our property, I am doing follow-up treatment on an area that was logged this year. That involves going into the area and falling submerchantable trees that need to be removed.

This year was a good year for us. We were able to log quite a bit. We grow redwood trees; that’s really where the money is. But we also sell Douglas fir. The Douglas fir market was adequate this year to where you could sell logs. That is really key because what a timberland owner really needs to avoid is going in and cutting high-value trees—in this case, it would be redwood—and leaving your low-value trees. That can send you down a road to where you don’t have anything to log except for low-value trees. Low-value trees, generally speaking, are difficult to market.

The high price of fuel has increased the cost of trucking by quite a bit, and that takes away from the margin, particularly on the Douglas fir. Truckers need to make money, so we need to pay the increase in their cost, which is substantial. I think everybody’s feeling that, and that is coupled with shortages of truck drivers, which affect the cost of trucking and how easy it is to truck. That’s getting to be a big problem.

The outlook for next year is pretty guarded because interest rates influence the price of lumber, and that’s going to influence the price of logs and the demand for logs. Everybody is obviously wondering what is going to happen next year.