this is Katie vos good morning heartland
welcome back if you've sold a house a
car or any other piece of property then
you know that selling can be tricky from
finding a buyer to filling out the right
paperwork there's a lot of little steps
to keep track of throughout the selling
process and selling timber is like that
too now there are several steps to the
process many of which may be new to you
so to learn more about the process and
how to do it successfully be a deadiy
Hartwick from the missouri department of
conservation here to break it all down
for us how are you doing doing great
doing great thank you thank you so much
so tell us more about the process of
selling timber well a lot of people will
sell timber on a yearly basis and what
they're not thinking about is timber is
probably behind their land the longest
term investment that they have so it's
very important that you make good
decisions in you and you sell your
timber properly and you sell the right
timber that you have so why should
somebody harvest their timber there
there are a few reasons that you should
tell your timber one for the health of
the timber by going ahead and taking out
mature and over mature trees you're
thinning that and causing the other
trees to grow more vigorously it helps
fight off insects and disease you may
have trees that are damaged due to
storms ice storms and such you may want
to just be opening it up to release more
sunlight to the ground for wildlife so
so with that being said now can the
actual process of removing and
harvesting it can that actually get ugly
will it make it it really can and that's
what a lot of people do not like timber
sales because it looks ugly there are
things that we do to make it and
prettier verses as ugly as it can be um
but it can be ugly now what you need to
realize is there are ways that you can
you can improve that in about seven
years most of the tops and things that
you've cut and left in the woods should
break down but people going in and
harvesting firewood from those tops and
things like that help clean it up and
help your woods heal quicker so along
with that we have some best management
practices that we encourage loggers to
use so they use those on your forced
trails and the skid trails that they'll
use and when they do that then
and they can prevent as much soil loss
out of that timber sale as possible and
that allows your land to heal faster as
well interesting interesting
so the next question is I'm sure a lot
of people want to know how do they know
or how can they determine how much their
timber is worth well it just depends
okay now I'm just like anything else it
depends on how much you have what
current prices are what I find most
people doing is is selling timber for
what sounds like a lot of money if you
have a patch of timber out back and
somebody comes in offers you $10,000
that sounds great $10,000 is a good
amount of money so you're willing to
take that I find interesting people will
sell things all day with that you're
doing research and going to the penny a
farmer for example wouldn't go and sell
his beans without knowing what the top
price is which elevator to the penny but
they sell timber every day for for what
this good amount is so what you really
need to do is get a professional
Forester involved and whether that's a
forester from the Department of
Conservation or from the Missouri
consulting foresters association same
folks we had the same degree we went to
school together learn the same things
they just work for themselves versus
where we work for the state and a
forester can come in and inventory your
woods see what you have they can
actually mark the trees that need to
come out versus the trees that need to
stay so you have successful harvests
down the road and then through that they
can help determine what your timber is
worth and help you through the bid
process now the bid process can be crazy
the first timber sale that I ever did
for myself I had three bids come in that
day three thousand dollars twelve
thousand one hundred and sixteen
thousand five hundred so people the own
timber need to realize the guy who shows
up at your door and just offers you some
money maybe the guy who's paying sixteen
thousand he's more likely to be the guy
who's paying 3,000 interesting will
definitely keep that in mind my last
question is I know you had mentioned
that yes it could be an ugly process and
stuff now how will affect wildlife will
it affect it dramatically will it bring
more wildlife I know a lot of people are
worried about this and especially we're
right here go
deer season timber harvest can actually
be very beneficial to wildlife deer are
browsers and so they like that fresh
growth coming up off the floor
they love the acorns from the mature
trees now don't get me wrong but when
you get a sunlight to the floor you get
more sprouts coming up you get more
grasses and forbs growing in your timber
and deer love that type of thing
same thing with turkeys those grasses
and forbs a lot of insects use those so
Turkey will be going through they're
using that along the edge you might have
quail using that area so it can be very
beneficial in places where we cut a
little harder if you if you have a
portion of your stand that is all over
mature we take out several several trees
there you can provide it may grow up
really thick there and provide great
escape cover for your wildlife all right
so all right well all really good and
valid information and I know that you
had emailed me some beneficial links
good to the process so what we'll do is
we'll link up everything on our website
at Heartland connection comm and we'll
also link up Missouri Department of
Conservation's website if they have any
questions or concerns or just need to
get to in contact with you to ask some
more questions all right well thank you
so much Danny for coming thanks for
having me and we'll be right back