When I was a private sector consulting forester, I frequently assisted landowners in the marketing and selling of timber. Typically my involvement began with a call from a landowner after he or she was offered money for trees on their property.

One such incident involved a Wapello County landowner who was offered $3,000 from a log buyer to “cut some trees”. After a brief inspection of the site I informed the landowner that the trees in question could easily bring $10,000. The landowner hired me to mark, scale, and market the timber through a competitive bidding process. When this was done the original log buyer’s offer increased from $3,000 to $11,500. However, the high bid came from another area logger who offered $15,500 for the trees. The trees brought five times the original offer.

Another incident started with a site visit in late July on a day when the temperature was 99 degrees and the relative humidity was roughly 99 percent. The timber in question was a bottomland hardwood woodlot split by the Middle River in Warren County. At that time and on that day the most distinguishing feature of the woodlot seemed to be six foot tall stinging nettles and a horde of very blood- thirsty mosquitoes. After a brief examination of the timber on the south side of the river, the farm manager and I beat a hasty retreat to the safety of my beat up Chevy S-10. I told him that I did not see anything of significant value but that we should take a look at the timber on the north side of the river. He claimed it did not look much better. However, in hindsight, that claim may have been influenced by mosquito related blood loss and/or nettles related leg pain. At any rate, we both agreed that I would recon the timber north of the river on a day more conducive to human activity and provide my report.

To make a long story short, I returned to the site after the relative safety of a killing frost and conducted a timber sale. The sale generated $55,000 in a woodlot that initially seemed to hold few trees of economic value.

The moral of these stories are that Iowa landowners often underestimate the economic value of the hardwood trees in their forests and woodlots. One of the best ways to maximize the value of your trees is to contact a public or private sector forester to assist you with marketing the trees that you are considering putting up for sale.

The High Value Hardwood packet is available this month only. Cost for the 250 bare-root seedlings is $110, the same price as a regular 200-seedling packet. The High Value Hardwood packet includes 50 each of the following species white oak, red oak, black walnut, black cherry, and bur oak.

To order your High Value Hardwood packet and take advantage of this offer, call the State Forest Nursery at 1-800-865-2477packet.