How to start: Step by step to managing pine timber | Wild Turkey Science #462 - Natural Resources University

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
if you do that in a pine stand this fall

(00:03):
and then follow it up with a prescribed burn,
you're gonna love what you see come springtime
and it's gonna be a whole lot better going forward.
I think just having a forester looking out
for your property on your behalf
because financially it can have a big impact
on the decisions you make.
And so you're planting and managing timber now

(00:24):
for the next 25 plus years.
So I think it's important to have somebody
that's kind of looking out for you
and helping you make those decisions
and understanding those prescriptions
and understanding what the prices are
and the different application methods and everything.
It's just good to have somebody
that's kind of on your side,
helping you walk through all that.
Welcome to Wild Turkey Science,

(00:53):
a podcast made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow.
I'm Dr. Marcus Lashley,
Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Florida.
And I'm Dr. Will Goolsby,
Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management
at Auburn University.
We're both lifelong hunters and devoted scientists
who are passionate about hunting,
managing and researching wild turkeys.

(01:16):
In this podcast, we'll explore turkey research,
speak to the experts in the field
and address the difficult questions
related to wild turkey ecology and management.
Our goal is to serve as your connection
to wild turkey science.
This is gonna be a really good one today though, y'all.

(01:40):
I think, I mean, you know,
we've been talking a lot about forest management lately,
this relative, relevant to the landowner.
And we're gonna continue with that theme today
with Michael Heatherly,
an awesome, fantastic guest that we have here.
He's a forester with Sizemore and Sizemore,
almost said what you asked me not to.

(02:00):
But Michael, tell us a little bit about
what you do in that role and we'll get into it.
Yeah, first off,
I appreciate having the opportunity to come on here.
I'm an avid listener of the show
and I think I'm up to speed on every episode of the podcast.
So it's an honor to be here.
Thank you for that.
Yeah, so I graduated in 2008 in forestry from Auburn.

(02:24):
And started out as just a field technician
with Sizemore and Sizemore,
doing forestry consultant work
and have slowly grown into the role
of being more of a forest manager.
And in the past five years,
we started doing more land sales.
So I currently hold our broker's license
with our timber land sales as well.

(02:44):
But day to day,
I'm working with mostly private land owners.
And we also have some clients that are,
you know, investment timber companies.
So that's kind of my day-to-day role
is forest management with private land owners.
And so-
Yeah, and I think one of the things

(03:06):
that connected you and I to begin with
is that as opposed to some foresters,
you do a lot of habitat focused work.
I would say much more than the average forester does.
We really do.
And we've kind of gotten into the past,
probably eight or 10 years, even,
to where I would say the majority

(03:29):
of our land owner clients now have wildlife management
as at least a secondary, you know,
objective for the property.
You know, we used to be more focused on,
most of our land owners
were about maximizing timber income.
And it seems in the past 10 years
has really transitioned to where
that wildlife management is either the top,

(03:52):
you know, goal, or it's the second,
you know, secondary objective on the property.
Yeah.
And so we've really focused a lot on that
the past few years.
Well, as a wildlife biologist, that excites me.
Yeah.
The shifting objectives.
I agree.
I also kind of feel like I've observed

(04:13):
a very similar trend.
And, you know, it's just been interesting
watching that play out.
I mean, everybody that comes to me,
or I'm assuming Will, has wildlife number one,
but it does seem like a broader trend in general
that, you know, that land management objectives

(04:33):
are shifting and wildlife is often,
it's always been, I guess, in the top three
in terms of like serving landowners in the South, at least.
But now it seems to commonly rank one.
Yeah.
I used to get nervous when I'd recommend to a landowner
that they thin below, you know, optimal stocking
or a traditional fifth row or whatever.

(04:55):
But now it's like, you know,
you used to have to almost brace yourself
for the conversation or the debate
that was coming after that.
But now it's just like, okay, tell me where to sign.
And that's where we want to go today.
And Michael, where I thought we could
probably start out with is let's just pretend that,
you know, we're landowners.
We just bought our first piece of property.

(05:17):
We want to manage it for turkeys and, you know,
maybe deer and other wildlife.
What do we do?
How does this process start?
Like once we reach out to you and kind of
what are the nuts and bolts of that?
Yeah.
So, you know, the first thing that I always want to know
when somebody reaches out to us
is what their objectives are on the property.

(05:37):
That's kind of the number one question
and kind of the starting place is what do you want to do?
You know, do you want to maximize timber,
have wildlife as kind of secondary objective,
or do you not care anything about timber production
and focus on wildlife?
So that kind of puts us on track of where,
what kind of recommendations that we make to a landowner.

(05:57):
From there, you know, we do a site visit
or we look at aerial photographs
and kind of see what maybe some options are.
You know, I'm not a biologist,
but I've spent a lot of time in the woods
with biologists on properties.
You know, where we've met with landowners
and a biologist on site,
and I've seen a lot of the recommendations
and the practices that have been put in place.

(06:18):
So there's some things that are kind of straightforward
and simple as far as if you have an unthinned
pine plantation, we got to get some sunlight to the ground.
You know, I think everybody can agree on that.
And then after that, depending on what comes up,
you know, if there needs to be a herbicide application
or, you know, a fire, you know, rotation put into place.

(06:40):
So we usually just start out with objectives
and trying to figure out what people are interested in.
And then based on what they have on their property,
what kind of timber stands they have,
then we make recommendations based on that
to meet their objectives.
And, you know, we are foresters primarily,
but I want to do whatever the landowner wants.
You know, if their objective is wildlife,

(07:02):
I have a lot of people that say,
I'm not interested in any clear cutting.
And we're fine with that.
You know, we're perfectly fine with, you know,
if the timber needs to be thinned
or we need to get some sunlight in there, we can do that.
And, you know, we do what the landowner wants to do
to achieve their objectives.
Yeah.
Marcus and I were just having a conversation about that
on a recent episode where we sometimes feel like

(07:24):
if a landowner has us out, they feel apologetic
if they have objectives other than turkeys,
like whether that be deer,
whether that be timber, cows, or something else.
And it's like, you never have to apologize
for what you want.
It's your land.
And my job is to just help you make it
what you want it to be.
Yeah.
And also, you know, when we were having that discussion,

(07:45):
we made, this may have come up,
but you don't have to use all of your property
to maximize one objective.
You know, in that case, it may be turkeys,
but, you know, you may have some stands
that are really productive timber
and you want to maximize timber there.
That doesn't mean you have to do that everywhere.

(08:06):
It also doesn't mean that you have to,
you know, I hesitate to say this,
but you don't have to maximize turkeys everywhere.
That's not your only objective.
So, yeah, I have found it interesting.
Michael, one of the things that you,
when you were just talking then
that kind of resonated with me, I guess before,
you know, we really wanted to get into the nuts

(08:28):
and bolts of, as a landowner,
what are the steps they'd need to take, you know,
and even like, how do they get the timber sold
and get people on the property and all that stuff.
But one of the things that you just said
was a lot of landowners aren't,
or I guess if they have a wildlife objective,
they may never see clear-cutting as an endpoint of a stand.

(08:51):
So I'm just curious, I'd like to hear you talk about that
because I talk to landowners about this regularly,
that particularly that have like a lot of wally pine
on, you know, stands on their property,
and I have talked to them about clear-cutting
doesn't necessarily have to be the endpoint
if they have a wildlife objective.
So would you mind sharing, you know,

(09:14):
your perspective on that?
Sure. I think one thing that's important too,
and something that is good from a timber standpoint
is that if you do cut timber,
whether it be thinning or clear-cut,
that usually generates some income
that you can turn around and put back into the property.
So that's really important, you know, to be able to,
if you wanna get your property in really good shape,

(09:37):
you're probably gonna need to spend some money
on herbicide and fire lanes,
and there's gonna be some input there on cost,
and so having some timber harvest planned
is usually a really good thing.
So when we look at older stands of loblolly pine,
the couple of things that concern me a little bit
is timber outgrowing the markets.

(10:01):
You know, it seems there's been a really big shift
from people, the mills wanting you
to grow big, large saw timber now
to where chip and saw size trees,
like a 12 to 14-inch tree is kind of the optimum size tree
as far as that's typically gonna be your highest value

(10:22):
other than a pole.
That's typically gonna be your highest value.
When timber gets to be in that 12 to 15-inch size
at breast height, that's kind of gonna be
your economic maturity of that stand.
So you kind of have to make a decision of, you know,
knowing if you thin that and don't clear-cut that now,

(10:43):
then it's not being as productive as it could be.
Am I gonna outgrow the markets
if I continue to grow this stand
and it gets to be 16, 18 inches at DBH?
Is it gonna outgrow my local market?
So there's, depending on what area you're in,
that's something to consider.
And then like you mentioned, Marcus,
the clear-cutting is not the kind of the end game.

(11:06):
Are we clear-cut this and all of our habitat's gone?
Because what we've seen is if you have a stand
that's been thin and well-managed,
say you've done some herbicide applications
throughout the rotation, you've done burning,
you have that understory in good shape.
When you clear-cut that, if you come back in,
especially with longleaf pine

(11:26):
that you can manage with fire afterwards,
you get good habitat almost immediately afterwards.
And so you may have a lag period of a year
where you've got a site-prepped area
that doesn't have anything growing.
But as soon as the next spring comes,
you're back into some pretty good habitat pretty quickly.
So I think that's important to people understand that.

(11:47):
I know people like to look at trees
and they're pretty to look at,
but sometimes that's the best option.
Cut timber, get some income,
use that money to put into other places on your property.
And longleaf pine's not the answer for everybody,
but whenever we're looking specifically
for people who are interested in wildlife,

(12:08):
we do recommend longleaf on a lot of sites
because you can burn it at such a young age
and early and often as you want to.
I feel like I'm about to take us down a path
that is kind of off topic
of what we originally wanted to talk about,
but we do it all the time.
So what the heck?
But I think you brought up some really good points, Michael.

(12:30):
And a clear cut is not always a bad thing.
And I recommend clear cutting to landowners all the time.
I mean, it's not just a net loss,
but it can also be creation of a field,
creation of a food plot, early successional area.
I might have to clear cut one of my stands
to attract a buyer.
And that's what I think we're gonna get into
in a little while so that I have enough volume

(12:53):
to make them interested in coming to my property
and doing the other things that I needed to do
if that's thinning or something else elsewhere.
So there's lots of reasons
that you would potentially consider that
and it not always be a net negative
in terms of the habitat quality of that site.
I think that that's definitely an important point,
especially when we're working with people with turkeys,

(13:13):
there's a lot of concern that,
and it may be somewhat founded
if you were going back with loblolly,
but at least if you replanted with longleaf,
just because you clear cut doesn't mean
that there's no turkey habitat for the longterm.
Like there could be with some regeneration techniques,

(13:36):
but what about on the other side, Michael?
So you were talking about timber outgrow in the market.
So let's say somebody is interested in thinning
to a relatively low basal area
and then trying to maintain that in perpetuity
so they don't wanna ever clear cut,

(13:57):
sort of like more like a quail plantation model, I guess.
And those trees do get bigger than the market.
Are they done with options to harvest
or what do they do in that situation?
Yeah, so in our area,
like a 25 or 26 inch butt is gonna be the maximum size

(14:19):
that you can take to a mill.
And even that size is limited
to a couple of different mills.
And so once you get to that size,
you're really limited to any kind of timber harvest.
And we'll talk about this later with the logging
and just the demand and trying to get things done.

(14:40):
Loggers, they like efficiency
and they like high productivity.
And when you have a low basal area
staying with a lot of large diameter trees,
it's not very attractive to a logger.
So I think you almost have to make that decision
at some point.
If you wanna thin this and you want to have this,
even like a quail type plantation look,

(15:03):
you're pretty much committed to have that.
And what we've done sometimes is we've inter-planted
some long leaf or short leaf around those mature trees
so that you have some control of your regeneration.
But I think at a certain point, you've basically committed,
like I'm never gonna cut this overstory out of the stand.
Yeah, so even if they have a 60 basal area target

(15:28):
or a 40 basal area target,
once they get to that really large,
it may even be hard for you to thin it
to keep it that low over the long term.
I've encountered a couple of bigger plantations
that have purchased their own logging equipment
for that reason.
And I mean, they're just cutting trees
and stacking them a lot of times.

(15:48):
Yeah, like at the pulp mill,
typically like a 25 inch butt's kind of maximum that too.
So whenever you end up with these trees
that are low basal area and they're large diameter,
a lot of times they're not good enough quality
to even take to a saw mill.
And so they end up as pulpwood trees
that are too big to go to the pulp mill too.
So they almost become from a timber value standpoint,

(16:11):
almost become worthless from that sense.
Obviously from an aesthetic standpoint and habitat,
they're worth something to the landowner,
but not as far as stumpage value.
Right.
Yeah, so let's go ahead and get into that,
the nuts and bolts discussion.
I feel like it's how we keep referring to it.

(16:33):
But a landowner contacts you,
you establish their objectives and to meet those objectives,
there's gonna be some timber harvest involved.
So how does that process start and what's it look like?
So, I don't wanna sound like a professor Will,
but it depends, right?

(16:54):
That's the answer you always get, it depends.
Depends on what they have,
is it something that needs to be first thin
that's never been thin?
Is it all pulpwood?
Is it older timber?
Depends on what they have.
And typically just broadly speaking,

(17:17):
a 30 or 40 acre stand of timber is about the minimum size
that you need to get a crew to come in
and do some type of timber harvest.
Now that could depend on the volume.
You could have a stand that if you're thinning,
it may only be thinning one load to the acre.
30 loads is not as attractive

(17:39):
versus if you're clear cutting a 30 acre stand
that may be running four or five loads to the acre,
high volume, it's a whole lot more attractive for somebody.
So we kind of look at what is on the landowner's property
and try to make a good decision
of how to market that timber.
We sell timber by the ton, pay is cut,

(18:00):
so they pay as they cut it and we sell it lump sum.
A lot of times when we're working with people
who are wildlife minded, we're selling timber by the ton,
we're negotiating so that we have a lot more control
over when the timber's harvested.
So the standard in timber harvest contracts
typically 12 months, 12 to 18 months,

(18:23):
it's kind of a typical contract.
Well, a lot of people, whenever their main objectives
are deer and turkey hunting,
they may not want you there in deer season or turkey season.
And so when you start adding these restrictions
to when somebody can be there and certain months,
say you're already on a property that can only be
maybe harvested six months out of the year

(18:44):
due to the condition of the roads
or just the condition of the ground on the property,
and then you add another restriction
of not deer in deer season or not deer in turkey season,
those are the kind of sales that we will try
to negotiate directly with somebody.
And then you can lay all those criteria out there
ahead of time.

(19:05):
Like, hey, do you have somebody that can get here
between now and the end of October or by Thanksgiving?
Or you can go ahead and kind of establish those parameters.
Yeah, it's nice when that's an option,
but sometimes it's not.
And if it's not, I mean, I can't tell you how many times
that I've given landowners the advice.
It's just like, rip the Band-Aid off,
let them harvest this deer season or this turkey season,

(19:27):
and you'll thank yourself in a couple of years.
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Especially in this day and age
where it can be hard to move wood sometimes.
It can be, and it can be really hard to move timber.
And I'm more of the mindset, let's get it cut
when we can get somebody in there to cut it
and then sit back and enjoy your place moving forward,

(19:48):
you know, because there's gonna be things,
just like the, if it's not timber harvest,
it's gonna be herbicide.
Hey, we're gonna go into this winter
and we've just killed out your understory,
but next year it's gonna be great.
So you're gonna have one deer season
where you're not gonna have a lot of cover in there,
one turkey season where it's more open than you'd like,
but to get to the end goal, that's what you need to do.

(20:09):
So that's usually, if people are willing to do that,
that's the best thing is to give a logging company
the most options, the biggest timeframe,
most options, you're also gonna get possibly more money
for your timber, given them the, you know,
if you're saying we're gonna give you 12 months,
they have a whole lot more flexibility

(20:30):
as you know, timing out the markets and everything
versus you give them three or four month contract.
So it's typically gonna lead to a little bit higher prices
if you give them the more flexibility.
That makes sense.
So once the harvest has been planned
and the actual operation starts, you know,

(20:52):
a lot of landowners ask, well, how do we make sure
that the logger is hitting the prescription?
You know, like what we wanted to happen
as a result of this harvest,
how we wanted the stand to look like.
Yeah, so that, I mean, that all be as a consultant for us,
that's something that we go out and kind of oversee
and monitor the harvest while the loggers out there,
but that would all be something that would be

(21:14):
on a exhibit map in the contract.
And it would be, you know,
the criteria would be outlined in the contract.
You know, if it's a first thinning,
what's your desired residual base layer is gonna be
after thinning and the same with say something
that's a second or third thinning.
You're typically, you know, thinning back
to a certain density and that would be up to us

(21:35):
to kind of oversee that and make sure that we're,
you know, hitting that density.
And the reason I mentioned on, you know, pay us cut sales
if you're doing an operator select harvest,
a thinning where the operators out there
picking the trees to cut,
that's the only way you can sell timbers by the time.

(21:56):
Yeah.
When you start, when you go to a lump sum sale,
you have to have very defined boundaries.
If it's a thinning, you would have to have the trees
either marked to cut or marked to leave out there
in order to sell it on a lump sum basis.
And so that's-
Because the forester already knows the volume
that's out there that they should be getting paid for
in that situation.
Yeah, you would know on a lump sum sale,

(22:19):
you need, if it's a thinning,
you need to have either the leave trees
or the trees that get cut marked.
We would go out there and cruise the timber,
tell the landowner, this is the volume we expect,
you know, and this is the prices.
And then we would take bids on that on a lump sum basis.
And the same as a, like a clear cut,
you have very defined boundaries.
You know, an estimate of the volume that's there.

(22:41):
So you can give the landowner expectation.
Here's what the prices are gonna be.
So typically on lump sum sales,
we recommend those if it's,
if you have really good access,
like all weather logging, you've got good road access,
you're flexible with your length of contract.
Like if you would allow a full 12 months,

(23:04):
basically pretty unrestricted as far as that goes.
And then we go out there and cruise the timber
and give the landowner,
we mark out the stream side management zones and anything
so that we know exactly the acreage of what's to be sold.
When you're looking at thinnings,
if you're gonna do a lump sum sale on a thinning,

(23:24):
you have to have the trees marked,
you know, prior to selling the timber.
So, Michael, I think you're making a case for it,
but you have asked this occasionally.
So a lot of people have land
and they might be interested in getting a cut done

(23:46):
or selling some timber.
So we didn't talk about this up front,
we just kind of assumed that they already went
and found a forester.
But a lot of the things that you're talking about,
like marking trees and trying to keep track
of what the loggers are doing
and all those sorts of things,

(24:06):
that would be on the landowner
unless they came to somebody like yourself.
That's correct, yeah.
So Alabama and a lot of the states have a designation
as like, in Alabama, it's a registered forester.
So they'll be a registered forester.
You have to have a four-year degree
from an accredited program,
two years of field experience,

(24:27):
and then pass a test to be a registered forester.
So you could be a registered-
That's administered by SAF, right?
Society of American Foresters?
That's correct.
Yeah, and there's a board of registered foresters
in Alabama that kind of oversees that license.
So you could be a procurement forester and be registered.
And we kind of designate ourself as consulting foresters,

(24:52):
and we're also members of the Association
of Consulting Foresters
that we have a little bit extra continuing education
as a ACF member.
And we basically have said,
we have no business doing anything with procurement
on the procurement side,
but you basically have procurement foresters
and then consulting forester.
And we work with the procurement foresters

(25:14):
to sell the timber to landowners.
But yeah, technically in Alabama,
to advise landowners on forest management activities
and timber inventory,
tell them what the timber's worth, that sort of thing,
you're supposed to be a registered forester.
So to put it in like a real estate analogy,
because I think a lot of people

(25:35):
are probably more familiar with that,
like a consulting forester is more like a seller's agent
and a procurement forester is more like a buyer's agent.
Is that right?
Yeah, I think you could say that.
I think you could.
I think Michael thinks my analogy was weak.
He's trying to get me out.
Well, it's not the first time.
I know, it won't be the last.
No, I think sometimes,

(25:58):
I had a conversation with a landowner the other day,
and a lot of times people call us
and they don't really understand what our role is.
They don't know whether we're a timber buyer or what we do.
And so I explained to them,
hey, we're working for the landowner.
We're working for you and your best interest.
Well, then I get the comment,
well, you're kind of the middleman

(26:18):
or you're the broker or whatever.
And it's like, well, no, I personally,
I see a place for the procurement foresters
and what they do.
They deal with the logging side and with the mills,
and they have a lot of responsibility there
to keep up with quotas.
And we're on the side of working for the landowner.
So I think there's-
Yeah, they're working for the good of the mill,
the procurement forester.

(26:38):
Yeah, the mill and for their loggers
and to make sure that woods flow into the mill.
And as a consultant,
we don't have, I have basically no contact with the mill.
Whenever they go on quota, they put a logger on quota.
I hear that from the procurement forester,
like, hey, we can't haul pulpwood the end of this week
because the mill's shutting off, that sort of thing.

(26:59):
I feel like there's a, there's kind of a place for,
you know, both sides in the business.
But I mean, that's kind of the difference.
We, you know, tell landowners that we're working for them
for their best interest.
And we don't have any, you know,
any interest in the procurement side.
Yeah, I think I'm kind of thinking through that,

(27:22):
you know, you're providing several things
that you have the expertise for
that most landowners don't have for themselves,
but you're also there to protect them in a sense.
Like, you're working in their best interest
in making sure that the prices that they're getting,
what gets cut, how it gets cut, how the land is left,

(27:42):
all those sorts of things are in accordance
with their contract.
That's right, and that would be,
if somebody asked me, what are your services?
I mean, that's basically when we get ready to sell timber,
we know what the acreage is,
we know kind of estimated timber volumes.
We mark out the sale boundaries.
We either negotiate or bid out the sale

(28:05):
to, you know, procurement companies.
And then once we get a contract,
then that's, we write the contract in favor of the landowner
to, you know, have a, maybe an advanced payment
on a pay as cut sale that, you know,
once somebody puts a little bit money down,
that kind of helps ensure that they're going to show up
and, you know, do the job.

(28:25):
We have a performance deposit in there that, you know,
if gates get torn up or if the roads are left in bad shape,
that kind of ensures that they're going to come back
and do that.
And so that's kind of what we do.
We implement the contract.
We oversee, once the timber harvesting starts,
we're out there overseeing the job,
communicating with the landowner,
making sure that they're happy.

(28:47):
And then we keep up with the loads
and make sure that everything gets paid for,
that gets hauled and that sort of thing.
And, you know, Alabama has a best management practices
for forestry.
And I would say overall, people are very good about,
you know, complying with those, you know,
without us overseeing that.

(29:07):
But we're just, we're there to make sure
that things are done correctly and, you know,
in working for the best interest of the landowner.
And you're actually, you know,
getting paid a fair price for the actual amount
that you're selling that they're taking off the land too.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's, I'm trying to think,
there's so many different questions

(29:28):
I want to ask you right now
that I think our audience would be interested in, but yeah.
So making sure, we talked about the contract.
What are, you touched on this briefly,
but just so that we're explicit with it,
what are some of the things
that are typically specified in a contract?
Well, some of the important things are the length

(29:48):
of the contract is always really important.
Like we talked about earlier,
how much time you're going to give somebody
to cut the timber.
We do have the performance deposit in there
that basically gets held in an escrow account
to ensure that the contract,
everybody's in compliance with the contract.
It's going to specify in there,

(30:09):
if it's like an operator select thinning,
it's going to specify that it's a fourth
or fifth row thinning desired residual basal area,
plus or minus 10 square feet of basal area.
So it specifies what gets harvested.
If it's like a clear cut,
it'll specify if we're taking out pines
or other trees out of the stream side management zone

(30:31):
or around the perimeter of the sale,
it'll say the trees marked a certain way will get cut.
It's got the per unit prices,
either if it's a per unit sale or pay as cut sale,
it'll have the per unit prices in there
and the product specifications.
So it gives you the specification for pulpwood,

(30:51):
chip and saw, saw timber, poles,
or whatever products that you have,
it'll specify in there exactly
what those product specifications are.
If it's a lump sum contract,
it'll have that lump sum payment amount in there.
Insurance requirements.
We ask that the landowner and our company

(31:11):
be listed as additional insured on their insurance policies
before any harvesting begins.
So that's some of the basis.
I mean, our contract, I think it's maybe only four pages
or so, and it's something that's been kind of adjusted
over the years.
But the people that we work with on the buying side,
they're used to seeing our contract

(31:33):
and they're comfortable with it
and they understand what those expectations are.
And so we typically don't have a lot of problems.
Yeah.
I would say that another major benefit
to working with a forester,
especially to the uninitiated,
is there's so much kind of institutional knowledge
that comes along with a local forester
in terms of you know who are the best logging companies

(31:56):
to work with, for instance.
Like, they're gonna leave your property
in really good shape, you know?
And you may not always get to go with that contractor,
but you at least have a good starting point
of who to choose from.
And then you know the markets, right?
So like, we should go ahead and cut these trees now
versus it'll be a little bit more valuable
if we wait two, three, five, 10 years, whatever.

(32:17):
Just like all those little nuanced details
that you know because you work in that area every day
and deal with those loggers
so you know what they're looking for.
Yeah, and one thing, just when you mentioned that,
knowing kind of when to harvest
and what's in demand in the area
and that sort of thing.
There's one stand in particular that I'm thinking of

(32:38):
that's the average diameter now
is probably 12 inches or so,
but the tree quality in this stand is just really good.
I mean, the seedling genetics and everything
were really good.
We did a couple of marked thinnings in this stand
and it's just really high quality.
Well, right now, let's just say,

(32:59):
throwing out there, the stumpage price
for chip and saw or small saw timber
is probably about half right now,
depending on what market you're in versus a pole.
So letting those 12 or 13 inch trees
grow just another inch in DBH
to where they may meet that pole class,

(33:23):
you could double your stumpage value right there.
And then vice versa, if you have a lot of,
if your stand's averaging 12 or 13 inches
and it doesn't have pole quality
and somebody's interested in maximizing
their income off of that,
it may be time to cut it now.
You may be at the peak of the market

(33:45):
for your particular stand in your particular market
if you don't have pole quality timber,
but if you do and you have a high percentage of poles,
just wait in a few years, you could double your stumpage.
So that's the kind of stuff that we can see
when we go out there, like, hey, hold on to this stand.
If you're interested in clear cutting,
let's hold it a few more years,

(34:06):
or you have health issues with,
we've had a lot of pine beetle infestations
with the lack of thinning and things like that.
If you see issues where you're like,
you really need to go ahead and cut this
and we can make a recommendation
based on whatever we see out there.
Along those lines, it made me think about this

(34:29):
when Will asked you that previous question.
So, well, I guess I'm asking for you to tell us,
but with landowners, are they just coming to you
when they think they're ready to do it,

(34:50):
or do you have some that you're working with
over a long term where they may have long stints of time
where they're not cutting anything?
How does that work in terms of your relationship
with landowners?
Yeah, so most of the time what we do
is once we've established a relationship with a landowner,
we kind of keep that property in our database

(35:12):
and keep up with what's going on out there.
So then we kind of know year to year,
like, hey, you have a long leaf stand
that's getting ready to be, it needs to be burned.
It hasn't had a burn since we planted it
two or three years ago, it's ready to be burned.
We know plantation age is out there
when they're approaching thinning age.
So we kind of keep up,
once we have an established relationship

(35:32):
with a landowner, we kind of keep up with the database
and know what those properties need.
And a lot of times what we'll do,
if somebody has enough acreage,
we'll do like a five year plan that just says tentatively,
we think this is what needs to happen
over the next five years.
And that gives them kind of something to look at

(35:53):
and us too, to go back and say, okay, hey,
we recommended, we need to thin this next year.
We need to be out there inspecting that
and making sure it's big enough to thin
and keeping in touch with the landowner.
So that's what preferably what I like to do,
just kind of give them a little short term,
sometimes we go out 10 or 15 years on properties,

(36:14):
but even just a five year plan of,
hey, this is what can be expected over the next five years
if we don't have any kind of natural disaster
or anything to cause us to deviate from this.
So in that case, when you're kind of planning out,
you know, potentially many stands that,

(36:36):
you know, they're gonna be in a window of time
where you're looking at a thinning or some sort of harvest.
And then on top of that,
you're keeping up with what's going on with the market.
So maybe next year, the market is really well.
So then you would come back to the landowners like,
well, you know, we planned on it being two years out,

(36:56):
but the market's excellent right now.
So you should probably,
so is that the sort of dynamic that you're working with?
Correct, yeah.
So we had several large timber sales
that we had scheduled to sell.
Just generally speaking in our area,
we get a little bit better prices in the winter time.

(37:17):
You know, things get wet,
people can't get as much wood to the mill,
the wood flow slows down
and you have a little peak in price.
So we had several larger timber sales
that we had scheduled to kind of put out for sale this fall
and about six weeks ago,
we've been getting a ton of rain.
You know, May and June was really wet.
I think one area I looked at for the month of May,

(37:37):
we were like 10 inches above, you know,
our average rainfall.
And so we started-
Yeah, we made it all the way through July
without even really getting dry.
It was crazy.
It was crazy.
It's been raining here every day, man.
So we started getting these calls like,
hey, we need wood, we got good prices.
And so some of those sales that we had planned to put out,
you know, this fall,
we went ahead and advertised those and sold those,

(37:59):
you know, back in kind of June, early July,
whenever the prices were up.
So we kind of look for things like that,
little peaks in the market where we can,
you know, take advantage of that.
And, you know, it doesn't always work out that way
to get the best prices.
Sometimes you have to sell stuff when you can sell it,
but that's what we try to do, you know,

(38:20):
especially if it's something that can be cut in wet weather,
we try to kind of have those ready
and put them out when the markets are right.
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
That's interesting too, to kind of think about the,
I'm just thinking about the role that the foresters playing.
Cause I know people wonder about this, you know,

(38:41):
like you said, people, they come to you
and don't even know what your role is.
And they're asking you about that up front,
but you can start to stack things
that are being accomplished, you know,
that not only are you providing some level of protection
and expertise and making sure that the wood's paid for,
that's taken off, but also keeping an eye on the markets

(39:05):
and letting some fine scale adjustment
that could maximize revenue on the same wood.
That way, like, you know, you start stacking those things up
that can make a pretty big difference
in terms of what people are doing on their land
and how much they're making in the process.
Yeah.
I mean, I think you can look at it as, you know,

(39:27):
both with consulting foresters and wildlife biologists.
Yes, it is an expense to work with those people,
but in the longterm, you know,
your net revenue may benefit
from having worked with those folks, you know,
from the timber side for all the reasons we've just discussed
and with the wildlife side,
making sure that you're spending money
where it's most effectively helping you

(39:48):
accomplish your objectives.
I mean, cause all three of us run into landowners
all the time that are spending lots of money on things
that really aren't moving the needle.
So it's not just a cost.
I mean, it can result in some significant savings too.
Yeah.
And then, you know, if you have,
how much is that additional 20% of gobblers?

(40:10):
Yeah, put a number, put a value on that.
Right.
So start thinking about it that way.
Yeah, it may have cost you a little bit more,
but you've got 20% more gobblers,
might be worth that, right?
I promise when there's six or seven of them
screaming at you on an April morning,
you're not going to be worried about that.
Yeah, nope.
That's fine.

(40:33):
Michael, one of the things that I wanted to ask is,
I was going to ask you,
I think with a little bit of a negative slant to it,
like what are the things that landowners should not do
when working with a forester?
The things that like, or barriers,
the barriers that they create to helping you
be most effective in your job.
But I'll flip that around and say, you know,

(40:54):
what are the things a landowner can do
to help you be most effective at helping them?
Right, so like, are there specific things
that you recommend to landowners that give them heartburn
or are difficult to overcome,
or that they're hesitant about?
I mean, we talked about it for just a second earlier,

(41:17):
but having the period, like ripping the Band-Aid off,
especially when it comes to herbicide applications,
it's hard sometimes because like right now
is when we're doing a lot of understory spraying
and people see, you know, hey, I've got this good,
you know, understory, the habitat looks good.

(41:37):
And we have intentions to do this, you know,
kind of a mid rotation treatment.
Well, they're afraid, hey,
we're going to wipe that stuff out.
And then all of a sudden my deer
aren't going to be here this winter.
And my turkeys aren't going to be here this spring
because it's just going to be barren.
But, you know, that's one thing that I struggle with.
I've had several conversations lately
with landowners who are concerned about that,

(41:59):
that, you know, if we spray now,
we're going to have a bunch of dead stuff out there
going into the fall and winter.
But I just kind of ensure them that we've done this enough.
If you do that in a pine stand this fall,
and then followed up with a prescribed burn,
you're going to love what you see come springtime.
And it's going to be a whole lot better going forward.

(42:23):
So that's one thing.
You know, we struggle and on the timber harvest side
with, you know, debris piles and expectations of,
you know, like the best area to set up a loader
is in the middle of a food plot, you know,
on top of a knob,
there's nowhere else to turn an 18 wheeler around.
And, you know, so we kind of,

(42:44):
we have to work through things like that sometimes.
And that's one thing as a consultant is that
I'm also trying to give the landowner realistic expectations
and kind of work with him and say, this is,
I know it's not what you want to see, you know,
having a loading deck sitting right here in your food plot,
but that's the reality of it.

(43:05):
You know, we're going to have to, you know,
spend a little bit of money burning those piles
and pushing up debris and getting that back in shape,
just because in some places there's nowhere else
to turn a truck around, you know,
it's going to compact your field.
And so there's things like that, that, you know,
sometimes I feel like I'm kind of, you know,
I'm working for the landowner for their best interest,

(43:25):
but I also kind of have to tell them, this is, you know,
this is part of the deal to get to where you want to be.
We got to work through, you know, these things.
Yeah. This is the reality of logging.
Yeah. It's not a, it's not a clean process.
And, you know, even if, even if you're in a market
to where you can haul pine tops off of chip and saw
and saw timber and get those cleaned up,

(43:47):
you still end up with a lot of debris, you know,
a lot of log piles.
And if you got a lot of, you know,
cankers and stuff at the base of the trees
that get cut off, you get these big piles of butts,
you know, that are hard to burn up.
And that kind of stuff, it's hard to,
it's hard for landowners to see that, you know,
until it is sitting there on their property

(44:08):
and they're like, what do I do now?
You know, so. Right.
One good thing that if I have another job close by,
you know, to be able to take somebody
and show them an active site and kind of say,
this is what you can expect your place to look like,
that's really helpful, isn't it?
If nobody's ever cut timber before, you know,
they just don't know what they're going to,
kind of what they're going to be left with,
you know, from a mess standpoint.

(44:30):
Yeah. Do you prefer to have the logging debris
spread throughout the stand or do you like it piled?
So my preference is on a first thinning, you know,
you have a, basically you're cutting the stuff down
to a two or three inch top a lot of times.
So on the pulpwoods, on a first thinning,

(44:51):
I prefer that they spread that back through the rows.
You can pretty much, if you spread it through the corridors
and then you run over it,
it'll just about disappear on a first thinning.
Now, as you get to older timber where you have larger,
larger piles of debris, I like to pile those.
Even if it means cutting out of a bigger area

(45:12):
around your loading area to pile those,
I like to pile and try to burn those tops if possible,
because if you start distributing those big tops
back out in the stand, it kind of gets to be a mess.
And then if you want to follow that up
with the prescribed burn, you know, in the future,
then you end up having these big, big brush piles
that are out in the woods that are getting too hot.

(45:34):
So, but it depends sometimes, it depends on, you know,
the size of the loading area and, you know,
what the timber's like and that sort of thing.
But I typically, first thinning, like to spread the,
distribute the debris back through the thinning
and on older stands, try to pile it so we can burn it
if the landowner wants it to disappear.

(45:55):
Or you can have me come burn it for you, right?
Yeah.
Like that stand we did last year.
Yeah, yeah, you definitely helped us out.
That wasn't part of the plan, but it got burned.
Well, Michael, you guys addressed, you know,
thinking about landowner barriers,
but I wanted to ask you directly because it seems like,

(46:17):
at least in the recent past, this has become pretty common
across some parts of the South.
And you mentioned it earlier, what if we're in a bad market
and we're having a real hard time selling timber,
like maybe you've got, you know, a good product,
but you don't have a market, what are, I mean,
are they just stuck or what are some strategies

(46:40):
that you might take to move wood?
Because I think a lot of people find themselves
in that kind of situation where they would like
to cut timber because they know that they need to do it
to meet some wildlife objectives,
but they're just having a hard time getting it done.
That's a very good question right now.
Yeah, so I would say on thinnings,

(47:02):
like if you have an unthinned stand of pine
and you're in a tough market area, like right now,
and one of our mills closed that, you know,
kind of in one of our areas that we work in.
And so there's still the demand for pulpwood,
but the prices have went down.
And so landowners are going to have some time to, you know,
adjusting to a very low pulpwood prices.

(47:25):
You know, we're talking maybe a dollar or $2 a ton
in the future for pine pulpwood,
where it used to be eight or $10 a ton.
That's hard for a landowner to stomach
if they're used to getting, you know, more money.
But in those situations,
I say you gotta take what you can get
and get your timber thin so that it can be growing,
it doesn't get stagnant.

(47:46):
Whether you're trying to manage for wildlife
or you just want your timber to grow,
on those unthinned plantations,
you take what you can get for the stumpage
when you can get it and get somebody in there to thin it.
But that's kind of where we are in some market.
Now, there's certain areas to where, you know,

(48:06):
the pulpwood prices are still okay
and you can be a little more selective
or you may try to wait till you get a little better price.
But in certain markets where it's hard to get thin,
you just, you take what you can get
when you can get a crew there
and go ahead and get it thin
and get the canopy open and let your trees grow.
And we also will package things together, too.

(48:26):
If we have four or five landowners,
kind of in a small area where, you know,
say within a five or 10 mile radius of each other,
we'll kind of package those together
because they may have a mix.
You know, somebody may have a first thinning,
somebody may have a second thinning,
you know, they may have different things
and we can package those together,
maybe to sell to one buyer, one dealer,

(48:47):
and maybe that same logger cuts them all
or maybe they have a couple of loggers, you know,
that cut them.
But we've been doing more of that, too,
in the last few years.
It's kind of putting little packages together
of timber sales, you know,
and trying to work with somebody to get them done.
That's what it takes sometimes.
If you have a large enough, you know, property,
you may be able to package a, you know,

(49:08):
we'll give you a little bit of clear cut over here,
we'll give you some better wood over here
in order to get this first thinning done.
But if you're talking, if you only own a hundred acres,
you know, we may, you know, have your property
and a couple of others kind of in a package
to try to get, you know, multiple landowners done
at the same time.
Because it just depends, the problem with the logging

(49:30):
and what it's hard for people to understand
when they see these dumpage prices reports and stuff
come out, or they hear their neighbor talking about,
hey, I got this much per ton.
Is it so property specific?
You know, it has, there's so many things that are involved
in what somebody is willing to pay for something
and when it can get done.

(49:51):
You know, the access, is it right off the side
of a paved road that, you know,
can be accessed all year round?
Does it have a mile or two of, you know,
internal woods roads you have to go
that are gonna have to go down,
that are gonna have to be maintained?
It's getting to be more of a problem now
where people are on limited quota for certain products

(50:14):
that it's beneficial sometimes to have a timber sale
that has multiple products, you know, on one stand.
If you got a first thin in this 90% pine pulpwood,
sometimes people won't, you know, they just say,
I can't do it, I'm sorry.
Because they need to cut 50 loads of wood a week to survive.
They may only have 30 woods, 30 loads a week

(50:36):
of pine pulpwood quota at the mill.
So on a Wednesday, they're done.
We've hauled all of our quota.
We don't have anything to do the next two days.
And so it just, it really depends on, you know,
what market you're in and kind of how wet it is outside.
And there's just a lot of factors that go into it.
And that's what having a forester

(50:58):
that knows your local markets
is gonna be really beneficial
to kind of help you understand all those.
Yeah.
All those things.
Yeah, I feel like these days in the deep South,
especially, like if you can get pine pulpwood
to pay its way off the stump and off your property,
you're doing pretty good.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, there's, like I said,

(51:20):
there's still some areas
that have a pretty good pulpwood market,
but there's also some that, you know,
you basically are having to give it away to get it done.
And in those cases, if you find somebody that can do it,
you take what you can get and get at things.
If you look at the last year,
we had this really bad Southern Pine Beetle outbreak
across Mississippi and Alabama,
and they had, the Alabama Forester Commission

(51:43):
has a GIS map with all the locations
that they detected from the air.
And you start zooming in and looking at those,
a high percentage of those pine beetle infestations
are in unthinned pine plantation.
I mean, it's, I was scrolling, you know,
looking Northwest Alabama, Central Alabama,

(52:03):
it's probably 80 or 90% of the outbreaks you see
here in unthinned plantations
that people have either not gotten thinned by choice
or they haven't, you know,
been able to get somebody to thin those, that's where.
Yeah, I hear that so much now, especially in that area.
Yeah.
And people asking me for, what do I do here?

(52:28):
It was definitely an important problem to deal with.
One thing I did want to ask about, Michael,
was at first thin and residual basal area.
You know, a lot of folks get nervous about going too low
because we're talking about obviously like for, you know,

(52:48):
forest management for wildlife.
And with that, a lot of times we're thinning to basal areas
that are lower than what would typically be recommended
for just timber production, right?
So at that first thin,
if a landowner wants to go to a lower basal area
than is, you know, tradition for the forest industry,
are there concerns there about the stand

(53:12):
and the stand's health?
And particularly, I'm thinking about wind throw, you know,
and how do you handle that?
Yeah, so if I had a preference,
what I would prefer to do is thin a little bit more
traditionally on the first thinning
and then let those trees recover
and let the crowns fill out a little bit more

(53:32):
and let them get a little more stability
in the root system and everything,
and then hit them a little heavier at a second thinning.
That would be my preference.
Right.
And it kind of depends too,
if you have a stand that has, you know,
pretty high live crown ratio,
when you go in there to first thin,
I feel a little bit better about thinning
it a little heavier.
You know, sometimes these stands

(53:53):
that are overdue for thinning,
you'll see they have just a little tiny,
just a little tiny top, you know.
A little Q-tip top.
Yeah, a little small green top,
and they're real small.
You know, the average diameter's
six or seven inches in the stand.
If you go in there and thin something like that,
that's, let's say it's 50 or 60 feet tall

(54:14):
with a really small crown,
and you go in there and hit that really heavy
on the first thinning,
you're gonna have a lot of wind throw.
Mm-hmm.
And some people are okay with that.
You know, some people are like,
hey, that's fine.
If I end up with a 50 basal area
and some of them fall over,
then that's not a big deal to me.
But, you know, you just have to know that
going into it, that if you thin that too heavy

(54:36):
on the first thinning, you know,
ideally, my preference would be, you know,
maybe a 70 to 80 basal area in that range
on the first thinning,
and then five years, four, five, six years later,
come back a second thinning,
and then take it down to whatever,
you know, if it's a 50, 60 or lower.
If you think you're in a place where you have that,

(54:57):
that is an option to you.
But like, if you're having a really hard time
moving the trees,
then that may be a situation
where you think about going lower at the first cut
in case we can't get them back, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, it just sticks up, you know,
that there's some risk associated with it.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, Michael, we're getting close to an hour,

(55:20):
and we want to be respectful of your time,
because I know you got a lot to do.
I'm good.
What have we failed to-
I'm here for it.
Yeah.
What have we failed to ask you?
Because, you know, you've got a lot of experience
working with folks.
What do people need to know that we haven't asked you?
I don't know.

(55:41):
I think there's a whole lot of aspects in forest management
that we deal with,
and I do think it's important to have somebody
kind of working on your behalf.
Because you talk about,
we've talked mostly about timber harvesting.
You know, we haven't really gotten into
herbicide prescriptions.
You know, if you're doing kind of a mid-story,

(56:01):
under-story treatment,
or if you're doing site prep treatments
with herbicide prescriptions.
I feel like we need to have you back
for a whole other episode with that.
You know, and then you talk about seedling genetics,
you know, whether you're going to species,
you're going to plant longleaf, loblolly, or shortleaf.
And if it's loblolly, do you want third gen,

(56:21):
open pollinated or mass control pollinated seedlings?
And what spacing are you going to plant those on
that say, if you want some timber production,
but you still have wildlife as a secondary objective,
you probably don't want to plant 700 trees per acre.
I don't recommend that for timber production now either.
I mean, we're going a lot lower density,

(56:43):
but you know, those are things to think about.
So I feel like invasive species control mean,
I don't know, when we're out there on the property,
we see all these things.
You know, we're out there looking at a timber harvest
or we see kudzu or cogongrass or whatever invasive species.
I was on a place the other day that gave me a lot of anxiety

(57:03):
because I counted so many different invasives.
You know, it was like everything you can think about
when we had a Chinese tallow tree, kudzu,
Japanese climbing fern, giant reed, Chinese privet.
I mean, all within eyesight, you know,
and that's the kind of stuff that kind of gives me anxiety

(57:24):
when I'm out there thinking about
how are we going to deal with all this stuff?
But I mean, I think just having a forester looking out
for your property on your behalf
and seeing those kinds of things
and helping you make decisions,
because there's a lot that goes into, you know,
financially, you know, it can have a big impact
on the decisions you make and going forward,

(57:46):
what are you going to leave, you know, for your family?
You know, if you're thinking about,
say somebody that's getting older
and I hear a lot of times,
well, you know, I'm not going to see these trees
if I plant these things back now or whatever.
But I mean, I think that's important
to kind of look forward, you know.
What we do, we're looking at a 25 year, you know,
plus rotation.
And so you're planting and managing timber now

(58:08):
for the next, you know, 25 plus years.
So I think it's important to have somebody
that's kind of looking out for you
and helping you make those decisions
and, you know, working through.
But there's a lot involved with forest management
as a whole.
You know, there's a lot that I think we do.
And I don't think that landowners, you know,
we get like I mentioned earlier about people asking,

(58:29):
what do we do for timber sales?
But, you know, there's a lot of people out there
that, you know, do site prep and planning work.
But, you know, understanding those prescriptions
and understanding what the prices are
and the different application methods and everything.
It's just good to have somebody that's kind of on your side,
you know, helping you walk through all that.

(58:51):
What are some things, Michael, that people can,
is there a way that they could help determine
who would be a good forester?
Like how can they vet these people
or maybe some of the questions they might ask?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I mean, you know, I would recommend like
the Association of Consulting Foresters
has a Find a Forester, you know, page there

(59:14):
where you can go and you can search
for kind of your county and state.
And it'll have a list of people.
The Forestry Commission also has a page there
that has a tab that you can go to,
like Alabama Forestry Commission,
and you can select consulting forester
or whatever you're looking for specifically.
I was asked the same question on a panel one time

(59:37):
with a forest landowners meeting.
And, you know, my answer to the question at that time was,
you know, find somebody that your friend uses
that you know, like a personal reference.
I find that that goes a long way
with establishing that relationship.
If somebody calls me and they said,

(59:58):
hey, I was referred to you by this person
and they're real happy, then there's that trust,
you know, all of a sudden,
without me having to try to prove myself
or, you know, my understanding of forestry,
like there's a connection there already.
And so that already, if you can ask a friend
at who they're using, find somebody, you know,

(01:00:19):
that you know locally and ask them who their forester is
and if they're happy with them.
I mean, that seems to me like the best situation possible.
And if you don't have a connection like that
and don't know who to ask,
then you can go to those resources
and make a few phone calls and, you know,
tell a forester what your objectives are

(01:00:39):
and, you know, see if it seems like it's a good fit.
I mean, if it definitely doesn't hurt to ask some questions
and find out, you know, if they're familiar
with the markets, you know, in your area,
tell them, hey, I'm interested in turkey or deer management
or just timber production
and make sure that's something that they're interested in.
There are foresters out there that, you know,

(01:00:59):
they're more geared for timber production.
You know, they're not as interested in helping
with wildlife management.
And, you know, that's something I think from,
just from hunting and enjoying, you know, being out.
I love to turkey hunt and be in the woods.
And I just, that's all I've studied, you know,

(01:01:20):
when I decided, made the decision to go into forestry.
I've studied the wildlife management aspect,
even though I don't have a degree.
And I feel like that's kind of where I always lean towards.
And that's just the landowners that I've kind of attracted
over the past few years,
just because that's what I like to do.
But just find somebody that feels like a good fit

(01:01:40):
and maybe get a recommendation.
Yeah.
I think this is a good opportunity too,
to just throw out a PSA.
We've got a lot of younger listeners
that are thinking about career paths and stuff like that.
And they're always, you remember this, Michael,
like back when you were in school,
there seems to be this divide
between foresters and wildlife biologists.
Because at almost every institution,
they're in the same program,

(01:02:01):
you know, right next to each other every day.
But the further I get from school,
it's actually the more I work with foresters, not the less.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, it's very important to establish relationships
across that aisle, so to speak.
Yeah.
Most of the landowners, I was just thinking about that,
most of the landowners that I have worked with in the past,

(01:02:25):
they have me there for wildlife.
I do have a forester degree also,
but they have a forester on, you know,
that they work with already also.
And it's very common that I am working with that forester
on what the actual final recommendations are
for management of the property.

(01:02:46):
So, I mean, that's super common.
And I definitely think, you know,
I obviously have a biased opinion,
but I think that's important for landowners
because they're getting good information
from people that specialize in that,
and we're looking out for the landowner.
Yeah, yeah.
I think we can pretty safely say

(01:03:06):
the vast majority of professionals are doing that.
You know, they're trying to look out for people.
But, you know, you always hear horror stories.
It was actually, I was in North Carolina like a week ago,
I guess, since we're recording this,
and there was a forester that, you know,
was speaking to the audience,

(01:03:27):
and that was the same line of questioning that came up
was what we just talked about.
Like, how do I know who?
And they had, this particular landowner
had a bad experience.
And she was like, what do I need to do?
How can I vet people beforehand?
Because once it's done, it's done.

(01:03:50):
So I think that, you know,
that's definitely something that's important.
I'm glad we covered it.
Yeah, well, for a lot of smaller landowners,
you know, if they're clear-cutting timber,
it may be like a once-in-a-lifetime thing
or a couple times-in-a-lifetime.
It's a pretty big decision.
I think that, you know, a lot of people don't take lightly,
and they want to make sure they're getting

(01:04:12):
as much as they can for it
and make sure somebody's looking after them.
Sure.
It certainly could transform your property
for the rest of your life.
Yeah.
And potentially for multiple ancestors' lives.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, good.
I felt like that was a pretty strong episode.

(01:04:33):
I think a lot of our listeners will appreciate that.
Yeah, definitely really direct.
And hopefully for everybody out there listening,
you know, we're trying to address topics
that you bring to us.
This is another one that comes up really commonly.
Will and I have some ideas for doing some other topic areas
that have come from listener feedback

(01:04:53):
and just our own thoughts about it.
But, you know, we are trying to go down this vein
to talk about some practical things,
like how do I get this done?
Because it seems like that's coming up a lot.
People are getting in that headspace
that they have a pretty good idea.
Okay, I've got these things to accomplish,

(01:05:15):
but now they're wondering, how do we start?
The logistics of it.
Yeah.
The implementation.
Right, the practical part.
So thanks, Michael, for coming on.
That was really great. Yeah, thank you.
And thanks everybody out there for listening.
We really appreciate it.
We appreciate all the feedback.
Will, you brought up the other day,

(01:05:35):
well, maybe yesterday,
we haven't told anybody in a while,
but if you haven't had a chance,
please go and leave us a rating.
Helps the algorithm.
It's good that you asked for that
coming off of this episode
and not one with just me and you
talking about BS for 30 minutes
before we get into anything with substance.
Well, you know, I've gotten a few comments

(01:05:56):
saying people like that,
but I've also gotten some that people are like,
y'all need to get to the point.
They're both right.
Yep, yep, they are.
But yeah, we really appreciate it.
I think that was great.
And thanks everybody out there for listening.
Wild Turkey Science is part of

(01:06:18):
the Natural Resources University podcast network
and is made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow,
a grassroots organization dedicated to the wild turkey.
To learn more about TFT,
check out turkeysfortomorrow.org.
Turkeys for Tomorrow.
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How to start: Step by step to managing pine timber | Wild Turkey Science #462

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How to start: Step by step to managing pine timber | Wild Turkey Science #462