timber prices? I've got pine and hardwood pulp and a good bit of big 35+ year old pines. It's 15-18 acres of natural growth timber. It's been difficult to get it cut since its small acreage, but I have a crew cutting just a mile or so down the road now coming to look at it. I've waited this long and don't want to give it away but don't want to wait until the beetles get it either. Market was decent before this mess happened. Need advice and opinions

My office is about 1/4 mile from a buyer and I’ve noticed a lower than normal number of log trucks passing by over the last 10 days or so.

I have not seen a slow down in Wilcox, Dallas, Lowndes, Butler, or Crenshaw Counties and I have been driving them all day for the last several days. A lot of the sales were made before this crap hit, now things are getting cut. The sales may have slowed cause of the office workers being out, but the cutters are still working.

I'm just concerned about prices, I can wait if I need to

If you can get anything for a tract that size, take it. Otherwise just leave them alone.

Pine Saw timber has been hard to move. Many sawmills have closed. As a result, people have been moving to pulpwood stands and quotas are getting difficult and price has slipped several dollars.

Hardwood pulpwood price still seems to be stable.

That's what I figured but didn't want to hear. A forester looked at it when a crew was cutting across the road about 3 yrs ago. Told me I had a good bit of plylogs, the crew was supposed to come back to that property and then cut mine. Property sold, loggers never came back to that place or mine.
Is that new sawmill in pike co open?

I think the Rex one in pike county stopped taking logs last week. Several of the pine mills have stopped taking or put loggers on quotas because of slow sales since china virus.

Quota is pretty bad right now on everything besides hardwood pulp and it won’t be long before it’s on quota bad too.

I know a crew was set up thinning a 100 acre tract I lease and they packed up and vanished right after they started, a few weeks ago.

Besides quota and some mills shutting down it really hasn't slowed alot of production. Only bad thing in my area gp got the monopoly send a truck to the mill has to wait dam near 2 to 3 hours to get unloaded.

Same happened at our place

Went and checked a crew working on us this morning and the last load for the week was leaving the ramp. This was a natural tract with a lot of separations.

My buddy who is a forester said IP in Prattville is tight on quotas. He said he has plenty of wood scheduled to cut but unable to cut much now because of quotas.

Now this is an area I'm familiar with. The mills give each dealer a qouta. The dealer has loggers that haul to the mills but MUST go through the dealer who has the load tickets. 1 load ticket = 1 of that dealers qouta.

What no one has mentioned is WHO determines the quota for each dealer. HOW is it determined? It all starts on December 25 with really nice and expensive Christmas presents to the ones setting the quotas for each dealer.

On top of that, dealers don't all get the same price per ton from the mills.

Current ply log prices? Anyone?

They are cutting on us right now. I dont think it's affected them at all really. Like it's said above, most crews wont even mobilize for 15-20 acres. Your best bet, if there is a crew right down the road, and your timber is dry and easy to get to, would be to see if they'd be interested in running over and grabbing it while the are already mobilized and right there at it. I'm honestly not sure you could even get a crew to mobilize and come get it on a "stand alone job basis" even if you gave the timber to them.

Ply logs are around $30 down here

Where is down here?

I am not going to mention who my buddy works for but I have mentioned him several times on here when people are asking for someone to cut wood in central Alabama. I guess you are saying his boss man just didn't give the best Christmas gift last year!