Originally Posted by Driveby
Originally Posted by abolt300
Originally Posted by Driveby
Originally Posted by Gobl4me
Canadian spruce vs southern pine

Spruce is stronger. More weather resistant. And more likely to start straight and stay straight when framing.

Southern pine could be close competition if the long leafs and mixed stands were used for lumber instead of commercial quick grown loblolly.

My opinion

Actually Spruce is the less dense of the 3 major softwoods sold and the majority of it does come from Canada. Southern yellow pine has a higher resin content making it more weather resistant, heavier, and better for load bearing applications. Spruce will snap long before yellow pine. That's why you see trusses and structural posts made from yellow pine and not spruce. Spruce is absolutely cheaper though. Fir does combine the best of both worlds and falls in between the other 2 as it is lighter than spruce but not quite as strong as yellow pine. I sell lumber for a living. You can probably guess as to what kind.
As to price, the problem isn't with the lack of harvest, the problem is the mills.


Weren't a bunch of the mills in the SE purchased by a Canadian conglomerate over the past 7-10 yrs?

Yes, a whole lot of them.

Well there is the answer on why the landowners selling the timber and people buying finished lumber are getting screwed. When 70-80% of the production capacity is owned by one group, they set the material input pricing and the finished product pricing.