Agro Forestry??

[r.reid]

I am thinking about taking 10 acres out of crop production to plant trees on. They will then be harvested in about 15 to 20 years for lumber. Anyone here ever do this? What do you guys think?

[cowman]

A very interesting idea! I would say go for it. Let's face it I doubt lumber/wood is ever going to go down in price?
Consider it a "wild investment"...might not ever pay much but hey it's only ten acres right?
In the meantime you might consider it an investment in your own "well being"? Lot of fun to try something different and get outside production agriculture?
I planted 1000 chokecherry trees last year, and though I doubt I'll ever live long enough to see any money out of them, they gave me a lot of pleasure just seeing them take hold! And I got a lot of pleasure just looking at them and watering them and keeping the weeds under control! I do believe they paid me back already!

[Horse]

I realy cant see any trees reaching a sutible size for comercial use in 15 yr but that is why I never cleared all my bush and I truly do find value in them even if it is just for the woodpeckers and chickadees
I agree with cowman go for it I feel we cant have to many trees and its not a big loss of 10 acres.

[gopher]

r.reid -- I had a piece of land that was hard to farm because of it's shape and came up with the idea of planting trees on it. The area was approx. 6 acres and I managed to figure a design for planting that I could plant approx. 350 trees to 1 acre and still be able to get a 10 ft cultivator down the rows. Like you I was going to leave them for 15 years or so because these trees were all colorado spruce. However 6 or 7 years later people driving by would see these 5 to 6 foot evergreens and stop in wanting to buy some. Once word got out we were so busy selling trees that we had to get a tree spade and before long we had a very profitable side line going. Looking back and if I was younger I would plant a whole 1/4 section into trees and really get at it!

[r.reid]

These trees are a special agro-forestry hybrid poplar clone, and suppose to produce an excellent saw log in 15-20 years. I'm 26 years old, I think that this would work quite nicely. I'm sort of looking at it like an RRSP. If nothing else, it would give some of the old coffee shop talkers something to talk about.