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Default Are The Black Walnut Trees I Have Worth Anything?

wrote:
I've heard all of the rumors, but need to know, from a reliable source.
I have 4 trees, that I want to remove, all in excellent shape. 3 are
8-10 in diameter, 1 is 20-24. I don't want to do it myself. Thanks, for
any and all help. Live in SW Michigan.


You would have to contact a copmany in your area (arborist, tree
service) to know for sure but I would say you would have a hard time
finding anyone that will _pay you_ to cut these trees or even to come in
and cut them for the wood. You may get lucky and find someone who would
offset some of the tab for the logs but that can be very tough to find also

If the 20-24 is actually in "great shape" it may be worth a little bit
but my guess would be it wouldnt even cover what a tree service would
charge you to cut them and haul them to the log yard. Walnut has a good
bit of sapwood so the smaller three trees wouldnt be worth anything.

Just for instance, if the larger tree produced a 30' dead straight log,
clean, with no limbs this may scale out to 300bd'+/- depending on what
scale the log yard uses and their particular scaling practices. Getting
a dollar a foot for walnut logs (around here, midatlantic region) would
be doing well. This of course can be much higher or drastically lower
depending on quality, grading, and the particular log yard its brought to.

Perhaps if you had a way to haul these three logs to a log yard you
could recoup some of your cost of felling them but that may be more than
you want to tackle. Other options may be to look into contacting some
local owners of portable band mills and offer them the trees for free in
exchange for getting them off the property. This would probably be a
great option if they are in an open area and easy to cut. If they are
near dwellings, powerlines, and so on, it may not be a possiblity and I
would surely ask for proof of insurance from whoever cuts them.

Good Luck,
Mark