It seems the spike in lumber prices over the summer and early fall would have had a positive impact on timber stumpage prices paid to landowners for large pine sawtimber, but the correlation is not there, explains Marshall Thomas, president of F&W Forestry Services, in his company’s fall newsletter.

While sawmills cut back production at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in anticipation of greatly reduced demand, they did not foresee the huge demand for lumber from people sheltering at home and embarking on home improvement projects.  Furthermore, after a significant drop in new home construction at the beginning of the pandemic, the industry rebounded quickly, and this one-two punch had the effect of creating a huge lumber supply/demand imbalance. 

“Unfortunately, the supply/demand imbalance that exists with lumber doesn’t exist for the raw material:  trees,” Thomas writes.  “In the South, we are still suffering a supply hangover from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) trees planted in the late 1980s and early 1990s.”

Thomas also cautions policy makers to be careful about implementing new incentive programs that pay people to plant trees, such as the Trillion Trees Act.  Without qualifications and limitations, such programs could result in another oversupply of trees and harm private forest landowners already doing what they want to encourage them to do.

This year’s tree planting season was almost upended, but swift and coordinated advocacy efforts by forestry associations made certain that it will continue unabated after the Trump administration issued exemptions following their appeals.

President Trump signed a series of proclamations this spring, suspending entry of most temporary seasonal workers into this country for the remainder of 2020.  The suspension included  H-2B guest workers, who are critical to the forest sector, planting the bulk of U.S. trees each year, along with other forestry operations that are necessary to maintain healthy and productive forests.

Research by Forest Landowners Association (FLA), Forest Resources Association (FRA), and National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO), among others, demonstrated to the administration the importance of allowing this program to continue.  Most significantly, these organizations showed that a ban on these workers would impact the forestry sector and rural communities by $725 million.

A new U.S. Forest Service report finds that American forest ecosystems account for more than 95 percent of all land-based carbon sequestration in the U.S., removing the equivalent of 11 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions annually from the atmosphere.  The report provides an overview of the status and trends of GHG emissions and removals from forest land, woodlands, harvested wood products, and urban trees.

Forest land remaining forest land makes up the largest “land carbon sink,” or stores the most carbon.  Wood products in use and in landfills are also important contributors to the carbon sink, representing 15 percent of total removals.

While data has been recorded since 1990, this is the first year the report includes data on individual states, showing that in 2018, Mississippi had the greatest removal of carbon while Montana had the highest rate of emissions.

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The latest survey of F&W managers on reforestation activity in their areas during the recent 2019/20 tree planting season was mixed but almost all managers said tree planting was above or the same as five years ago.

A common theme voiced by F&W managers was that timber markets were the principal driver of tree planting, with improving markets in some areas bumping up reforestation activity while a lack of markets in other areas caused a decline.

The predominate tree species planted by F&W offices is loblolly pine and more managers reported planting container seedlings.  Managers said they decided to use container seedlings because of higher survival rates, increased early growth, planting flexibility, and difficult terrain that requires sites to be hand-planted.  Most managers report that planting densities are down compared to five years ago, citing improved genetics, better growth, more use of container seedlings, and research supporting a trend towards planting fewer trees per acre.

The survey was based on data and observations from 13 managers in 11 states.  The responses came primarily from managers in the Southern Pine Belt region, where widespread tree planting is a common practice.  The Northeast and hardwood regions of the U.S. rely mostly on natural regeneration so there is little in the way of tree planting.

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SPRING 2020 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW