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CAPITAL IDEAS -- LIVE!
JANUARY 2014 News Conference for Forest Owners
Sponsored by the Alabama Forest Owners' Association, Inc.
This Conference was recorded on January 15,
2014
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Hayes D. Brown
starting time: (00:00)
Hear Conference |
Moderator
Hayes D. Brown, attorney and forest owner, will moderate this news
conference. Hayes' email address is
hbrown@hayesbrown.com.
Click Here to View & Hear Prior News Conferences.
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Bruce Lindsey
(00:28)
Hear Conference
Comment |
Wood Works for Non-Residential Construction
Bruce Lindsey is
Southeast
Regional Director, Design & Construction Services for
WoodWorks -- Wood Products
Council, based in Belmont, North Carolina. He works with engineers,
architects, city councils, school boards, and others to help them understand
how wood can be used in multi-story commercial buildings, schools, and
churches. His work is important to forest owners, since the key driver for
U.S. lumber demand (70%) comes from new home construction and repairs and
alterations. If WoodWorks is successful in encouraging the use of wood in
non-residential construction projects, their success will be felt by all
forest owners who grow and harvest timber. On the
WoodWorks website, the
following encouraging messages appear:
- Cost: Wood offers advantages in
terms of material, construction and environmental costs.
- Code acceptance: Building codes
recognize wood’s safety and structural performance capabilities in a
wide range of building types.
- Fire protection: Building codes
require all building systems to perform to the same level of safety,
regardless of material used.
- Innovation: Advances in wood
science and building technology continue to expand the opportunities for
wood construction.
- Renewability: Wood is the only
major building material that grows naturally and is renewable.
Bruce's special message to Alabama Forest
Owners' Association members: I would encourage you to visit the
WoodWorks website to see some of
the latest developments in wood based commercial construction. There are
some very exciting new technologies and product developments within our
industry. The website has a great deal of information on these developments
along with an unmatched set of resources aimed at the use of wood in
commercial construction. I encourage you to contact me with
any questions or potential project developments you see so that we can
identify and pursue this very important market sector for forest products.
More Information to Help You Tell the Wood is Good Mesage:
Phone: (704) 877-6255
Email: bruce@woodworks.org
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George David Peterson
(04:43)
Hear Conference
Comment |
Mobile/Tensaw Delta National Park Not a Good Idea
David Peterson is the leader
of the
Save Our Delta
Campaign, a loosely organized citizen group that is trying to shut
down the potential "federalization" of about a half million acres of south
Alabama land, about half of which is privately owned. Their
Save the Mobile/Tensaw Delta Facebook page has, as we write this, 7,121
likes, and the number grows each time we check it. In a
November 14, 2013 Lagniappe cover story, David said, “If they
had done this in ’79 [when a previous attempt was made to create a delta
national park] there would be no ThyssenKrupp steel mill... That would come
off our tax rolls, would take ad valorem tax away from our schools, hunting
and fishing would be more restrictive, you would have to buy state and
federal licenses. There would be severe restrictions on where you can and
can’t run your boat and put massive restrictions on what we can or can’t
do.” David would like you to become aware of
H.R. 3131, The National Park Service Study Act of 2013, which includes a
request for funds to study a possible delta national park. He would like the
Alabama study to be removed from the Bill and has posted
a
petition on the Save Our Delta website that asks the U.S. Department of
Interior to not update the 1979 study.
The above paragraph was written on January
12 in preparation for David's interview on January 15. Since then,
Representative Bradley Byrne has written a letter to the House Committee on
Natural Resources to remove "the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta in the State
of Alabama." from H.R. 3131. Byrne's office also sent out
a press release on the 13th clearly
stating his opposition to the delta national park. An article on
AL.com appeared on January 14:
House committee chairman likely to honor Byrne's effort to kill Delta study.
Phone: (251) 423-0523
Email: dpete4@aol.com
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Rans Thomas
(09:23)
Hear Conference
Comment |
Road Repair & Construction
Rans Thomas is
Senior Wildlife Biologist for
Cabela's, a major
supplier of outdoor gear (tabs on their website include hunting,
shooting, fishing, boating, camping, auto & ATV, clothing, footwear, home &
cabin, and hobbies). Since Lee & Eyvon, at the AFOA office, are eager to
build and repair some of the roads on their land, we were very interested in
reading an article Rans wrote in Quality Whitetails, Feb/Mar 2014,
entitled, Road Repair and Construction. We were particularly
interested his description of the
Rear Adjustable Blade that fits on a tractor's 3-point hitch and
how to use it. We paid special attention to some keywords such as
erosion, ditch, crown, and turnout.
Beyond physical obstruction, the
two most degenerative factors on forest roads are vehicular use and
water run-off.
Preventing Water Erosion
Before grading and smoothing repairs begin, a dirt road
or trail may need resculpting. The best tool for this is a rear-adjustable
blade (RAB). The RAB is a 3-point hitch tractor implement designed for
forward operation only. Its long curved blade with sharpened bottom edge
will pull dirt and light rock forward, rolling excess off the ends as it
moves forward. When one corner of the blade is locked in a downward angle,
it will cut a furrow or ditch, pulling dirt forward and upward toward the
center of the tractor. Scraping dirt out of ditches and up onto the road
body will create a more rounded road surface, called "crowning," which
forces water from rainfall to run off the sides and not to pool in the
middle, where it can create bogs or wash-outs. As water runs off the top and
down the sides, it will follow the linear grade of the road in the ditches
to a natural or man-made exit point called a "turnout."
Turnouts can also be constructed with a RAB. It is best
to work with the existing grade and water runoff patterns. Walk the roads
and find where water is running of the road and out to its final
destination. These sites are generally where the road makes a turn on a
downgrade, or where a natural flow of water downhill crosses a road. To
build the turnout at these locations, use the RAB in the same way I
described earlier by cutting a ditch that continues on the downgrade away
from the road out into the area where the water can drain naturally.
Turnouts channel the flow of water away from a road, out of a road ditch or
across a road reducing erosion damage.
More Information:
Phone: (912) 531-2892
Email:
rans.thomas@cabelas.com
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Dr. Kelly LeCouvie
(14:18)
Hear Conference
Comment |
"Don't think of it as succession planning..."
Kelly LeCouvie
is a Senior Consultant with the
The Family Business
Consulting Group, Inc., and is a faculty member at the
Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto,
Ontario, where she teaches strategic management, entrepreneurship, and
organization behavior. Kelly and co-author Dr. Jennifer Pendergast have
written a book that will to be of interest to family forest owners who are
struggling with the problems related to passing their forestland (business)
successfully to the next generation. While most of us do not think of our
forestland as a business, nearly all of us, especially those with several
children, will find useful information in
Family Business Succession: Your Roadmap to Continuity (scroll
to bottom to buy the book). Some AFOA families attend webinars produced
by The Family Business Consulting Group and your family might find useful an
upcoming webinar to be led by Kelly and Jennifer on February 5, 2014:
The Critical First Step in Family Business Succession: Shared Vision.
Phone: (416) 778-0221
Email:
lecouvie@efamilybusiness.com
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James P. Jeter
(17:31)
Hear Conference
Comment |
Observations on Planting
Hardwoods
Jim Jeter is the
Hardwood Specialist for the
Alabama Forestry
Commission. In that role, Jim wrote a short article in the
Hardwood Corner of Alabama's Treasured Forests, Fall 2013,
that may be of interest if you have land (old fields) that might be planted
to hardwood species. "Case Two" in the article describes a 22 year-old
hardwood plantation managed by Regions Trust that had recently been
commercially thinned. In a phone conversation with Regions Trust Managing
Forester Mark Elliott, we learned that Mark believes there is a need for
"harvestable hardwoods." Harvestable hardwoods would be available during
prolonged wet spells when mills run low because logging equipment can't
enter the bottoms.
Jim's observations of the Case Two
hardwood stand included the following:
- Crown closure was apparent by an early
age.
- Some species grew better than others (no
surprise).
- So far there has been no problem with
block-planting single species.
- Different thinning regimes yielded 30 to
40 tons per acre.
- The difference in aesthetics
(appearance) of different types of thinning (i.e., free thinning vs. row
thinning, different residual basal area targets per acre).
- Differences in potential for epicormic
branching between different regimes.
- Some species were browsed hard by deer
just after planting.
- What types of understory will develop
after the thinning?
- Hardwood seedlings will survive and
thrive after being planted with a machine planter.
For further study:
Planting Hardwoods -- Successfully - Dr. Wayne Clatterbuck interview on
Capital Ideas - Live!, March 2010.
Phone: (205) 339-0929
Email:
james.jeter@forestry.alabama.gov
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T. R. Clark
(21:16)
Hear Conference
Comment |
The Value of a Timber Sale Contract
T. R. Clark is the
Manager of
F & W
Forestry Services
LaFayette, Alabama Regional Office. We asked T.R. to comment on the
points made by Suz-Anne Kinney in an article she wrote entitled
Ensure Sustainability with a Timber Sale Contract, F2M Market Watch, 12/10/13.
The article contains a check list of timber sale contract provisions that
should be useful to you if you are considering selling timber. T.R.'s
discussion covers: Why do I need a timber sale contract?; Where do I obtain
a timber sale contract?; and, How do I know a timber sale contract is in my
favor? In answer to the last question, T.R. described a situation that
turned out poorly because the landowner signed a contract that was not in
his favor:
I had a landowner call that sold their
timber directly to a buyer and used that buyer’s template. The landowner
asked for a “thinning”, with the assumption that the buyer understood
what was expected. But the contract did not provide a method of harvest
(thinning type, residual expected basal area, trees per acre, species to
be left uncut, etc.). The end result was that the tract was
“high-graded”. The residual timber that was left was essentially
pre-merchantable sized scrap hardwood. It was technically “thinned”, but
the contract was inadequate in describing exactly what the landowner’s
expectation was. The buyer actually acted correctly based on what was in
the contract, but the contract was obviously not written in the favor of
the landowner.
Phone: (334) 864-9542
Email:
tclark@fwforestry.com
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Dr. Tamara L. Cushing
(23:51)
Hear Conference
Comment |
Forest Taxation Advice Before You File
Tammy Cushing is
Assistant Professor and
Extension Forestry Specialist in the
School of Agricultural, Forest and Environmental Sciences at
Clemson University in
South Carolina. She is one of the top forest taxation experts in the
U.S., so we asked her to talk to us today about some of the things
landowners should be considering as we get ready to file our 2013 income tax
returns. Of course, she suggested that this is a little late to make tax
saving decisions for 2013, and perhaps we should be thinking of things we
can do to lower our tax bills for 2014 and beyond. She asked us to refer to
Tax Tips for Forest
Landowners for the 2013 Tax Year by Linda Wang and John Greene.
Tax Tips touches on the importance of Profit Motive, Timber
Basis & Depletion Deductions, Timber Management Expenses, Reforestation
Costs, Depreciation, and Timber Casualty and Theft Losses.
Dr. Cushing has produced a series of
videos on forest taxation with the help of the
Forest Landowners Tax Council
through a grant from the
Forest
Landowners Foundation:
Phone: (864) 656-0878
Email: tcushin@clemson.edu
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Dr. Lynn O. Michaelis
(26:15)
Hear Conference
Comment |
The Coming Southern Timber Boom
Lynn Michaelis is a
Partner in
Forest Economic Advisers,
LLC and has nearly 40 years experience in the forest products
industry. Most of the experience was with Weyerhaeuser Co., where Lynn was
the Chief Economist and Vice President, Marketing and Economic Research for
over 20 years. Lynn's article in the July/August issue of Forest
Landowners magazine caught our attention. In
Southern Timber Boom he wrote: "The key ingredients are in
place for a surge in Southern lumber and timber demand - and prices - in the
next five years." Today we asked Dr. Michaelis to give us his
perspective on current and short term stumpage markets. In a series of
slides entitled,
Impending Shortage of
North American Lumber Capacity: Implications for U.S. Southern Industry,
Lynn describes the driving forces behind the U.S. lumber and timber industry
and where he thinks it is heading during the next few years.
A few quotes from selected slides:
- Exciting period ahead for U.S. lumber
and timber industry, especially for U.S. South (2)
- Key drivers for U.S. Lumber Demand:
Residential (Lumber Market Share) (8)
- Housing Collapse Was Due to Excesses:
Requires different forecasting approach (12)
- The Deferred Volume in the South
Substantial (24)
- The industry has improved, but still
is not healthy (31)
- Sustained housing and product demand
recovery through 2017 (31)
- Southern sawtimber harvest back to
2005 levels (2016-17) (31)
- Log/Stumpage prices in South
equal/exceed 2005 levels by 2016 (31)
Phone: (206) 434-8102
Email:
lmichaelis@getfea.com
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