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chris priebe
Member
| Joined: | Sun Feb 26th, 2006 |
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| Posts: | 8 |
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Posted: Sun Feb 26th, 2006 08:00 pm |
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Do any of you have a breakdown of the cost to bring a seed to its lumber form? Based on Mahogany my best guess has been as follows
- Dirt collection 0.02
- Bag 0.02
- Bagging Dirt 0.05 (at $20 a day)
- Land Purchase 1.00 (at $250 an acre, 250 trees an acre)
- Land Preperation 0.75
Now I'm lost as to what is required for pruning, fertilizer and any other costs. So far my best estimate is $5 for the whole process, what have you guys found? Thanks in advance for your help.
Chris, in Belize
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Fred Morgan
Sponsor
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Posted: Sun Feb 26th, 2006 10:28 pm |
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Hi Chris,
Well, a couple of things to add to your list:
Sterilization of dirt
Care of seedlings (16 weeks)
Netting for shade, also poles etc for the nursery.
1 dollar a tree buys good land for you? For us, we generally have to estimate 6 dollars a tree for land. A couple of reasons. Mahogany requires could soil to grow well. Therefore, you are competing against people who use it for crops - this is valuable land. How well your trees do is determined on how good your soil. Also, realize that an average is only about 60% of the land will be plantable, the rest will not because of the need for roads and land that is too steep to plant - sometimes you might be higher, but this is a good working number.
How much care is determinate on how good your land is. Normally, in Costa Rica, if you subcontract care, I think it is around 2,500 dollars per Hectare per cleaning, expect 4 cleanings a year, minimum. This is high, but if you don't have your own crews, expect to be charged a lot.
If you do have crews, you need a fairly substantial plantation to support them working full time.
Also add in about 4 visits of a forestry engineer per year for the first 3 years, and then every 2 years after that.
There are fences to fix and bridges to mend, etc. and of course taxes. Take whatever you think the number is and double it - and you will probably be okay.
Fred
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chris priebe
Member
| Joined: | Sun Feb 26th, 2006 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 8 |
| Mana: | |
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Posted: Mon Feb 27th, 2006 12:07 am |
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What kind of qualities do you look for in the land for mahogany, cedar and teak
- what kind of dirt?
- rainfall
- drainage
- chemical properties upon formal analysis in a lab.
What do you do for sterilization of the dirt
Is shade really that important for the nursery, have you tested it without?
What do you get the crews do to?
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Luchy
Moderator
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Posted: Mon Feb 27th, 2006 03:33 am |
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Hi Chris,
Wisely, Fred added some other things to your list, but you will need to consider other stuff after the plantation. So, as Fred said a forester can help better.
For sterilization of the dirt, after some compost is added (in order to get a better drain), a good heat will work most of the time but, it will depends on the kind of dirt that you have..
Mahogany, Cedar and Teak will grow better in a good, rich and well drain soil. On the other hand, keep in mind that Mahogany and Cedar will grow better over mix plantations than pure plantations, due to the shoot-borer (Hypsipyla grandella) which attacks and kills the young shoots. Planting both species in agroforestry sistems or in combination with another fast growing species or crop as: Plantain (Musa sp), Acacia (Acacia mangium), or Teak, and Gmelina plantations after thinning out, for example, will give you a high quality wood.
Nursery shade will be important, specially after potting and you will need to keep it at least for two weeks. Or you can try to pot the seed directly in the bag, in that case the shade won't be really important, but you will have higher mortality than if you use some shade. Hope it helps.
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Fred Morgan
Sponsor
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Posted: Mon Feb 27th, 2006 08:39 am |
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Hi Chris,
What do the crews do? Well, if you get the right land, you can expect a LOT of growth, unfortunately not just trees.  EVERYTHING shoots up over night.
Because in the tropics plants don't struggle against the climate (great climate for growing) they struggle against each other. You have to keep the trees free of competition. For the first year or so, we scrap the soil around the drip line of the trees - by hand (or I guess you would say - with machete).
The other thing you need someone there for is to watch the plantation - if you have an issue with a disease, you don't want to find out after it spreads through the whole plantation.
You will probably also need a person to watch to make sure no one steals your trees when they get bigger.
Growing high value lumber requires a lot of tender loving care. Growing trees no one wants is very easy, unfortunately. Most of the plantations I see down here are of the later variety.
Fred
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elguapo
Member
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Posted: Fri May 5th, 2006 04:55 pm |
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Okay, I am yet another one of those guys dreaming about career #2 (or #3). In my case it's the lumber business. I'm researching the feasibility of creating a sustainable reforestation project in Costa Rica. I'm also looking at Panama or Colombia but at this point the easiest area to research and most stable is Costa Rica. My wife is Colombian so I'd favor that location but Colombia just isn't stable enough for me to dump a half million dollars into.
Assuming lumber as a future source of revenue, the long term rate of return looks fairly good. What I need to get a handle on is what the cash flow will be for the duration of my lifetime. Ultimately upon my death and my wife's death I would like the land to be transferred to a trust so that the forest can continue to be managed, contribute to the ecomomy and if possible, leave an ongoing legacy for my family in the form of a home site that sustains itself from an expense standpoint. In the meantime I need to figure out if it's possible to do this without bleeding more cash than I can tolerate.
Can someone provide to me (or point me in the right direction for) man-hour estimates/rules of thumb on a per hectare basis for the following:
-clearing (I realize this is subject to land condition)
-planting
-weed control
-pruning
-sanitary cuts
-fence maintenance?
-typical consultant fees for forestry engineering service.
-seedling cost?
I've found information on the above in a study on smallholder cultivation of teak in eastern Panama but it just doesn't seem accurate based on earlier quotes in this thread of $2500/hectare for weed control. For example, the study states that manually weeding or pruning a hectare costs 32 man-hours. Is this accurate?
What are labor rates for plantation workers, including taxes, social security & holiday bonuses?
How how many workers (including caretaker) does it take to manage a plantation of 15,000-20,000 trees?
For the time being my assumptions are to initially grow teak which will be sold on the stump at $1.00-$1.50/bd ft. I'll research and consider vertical integration once I can establish that the first 10 years of operation won't sink me. Is there any commercial value for trees removed as part of the sanitary cut aside from fence posts? Utilizing a thin-kerf mill, can any dimensional lumber of any value be obtained such as for framing?
What other tree species are there, native or otherwise, that may have a shorter rotation to improve cash flow in the first 10 years?
Also, what are the tax benefits and/or incentives under Forest Law #7575 and can they be translated in terms of a credit per hectare?
Sorry for all of the noob questions. I know I've omitted a bunch of stuff as I'm gradually building this model as I research and learn. Please add in anything major I've left out.
Thanks,
SteveLast edited on Fri May 5th, 2006 05:18 pm by elguapo
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Fred Morgan
Sponsor
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Posted: Fri May 5th, 2006 11:38 pm |
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Steve,
Let's chew through these one at a time. First of all clearing - that is very expensive, mainly because you will do jail time for doing it. ;-) No clearing - nope, nothing like it. If you are going to plant a plantation, you have to start with pasture. You can not cut down even secondary growth in Costa Rica.
However, there is land prep - fences (not for the trees - they are fairly stationary, but to keep the neighbors cows out of your young trees), weeds, bad grass, etc.
Your stumpage assumptions are high - that is mature, first grade wood - think half or less than that in the first 12 years. We get that and more - but because we process the wood. We get the value added and pass it to our customers.
The harsh statement before you get too excited, 10,000 to 20,000 trees is too small generally to do well - the economies of scale are not hit until you get 40,000+ trees.
For example - you can't keep people busy with 10,000 trees, and you have to have people watching the land all the time, for the wandering cows if for nothing else (and there are other things too) - so you have to have house. Well, you can't drop people in the middle of nowhere without transportation - so you got to have a truck.
You have to have industrial grade weed whackers - if not better (we have brush hogs behind ATVs).
You are asking some of the right questions - but you have to start deeper.
1. Who is going to watch for my interest while I am away? We are on our fincas every day. Get a disease problem and ignore it - and you can lose everything. 3 months is too long.
2. How are you going to keep good workers? You can't send a worker out to the field by himself. Besides the obvious temptation to take a siesta - there are snakes, etc. You don't want someone to die working for you.
3. A forestry engineer will not make up for you lack of knowledge. You only need one a few times a year - and getting a good one is hard.
4. How is your Spanish?
By the way, this is how I do business plans - I shred them and see if anything is left. It is nothing personal - but MOST plantations here are failures. I kid you not. Ours have done excellently - but we are the exception - or that is what I am told. However, we would have easily made some fatal mistakes - but we had a Costa Rican business partner who steered us in the right direction.
Usually, when people talk plantations and harvest, they talk time, you should be talking size - you don't harvest after a certain amount of time, but when the canopy closes and you need to make room. This is determinate on the spacing of the trees. And that will determine how much land you have to have. If the soil is rich enough, and the care is good enough, you can have trees more than 8 inches in diameter within 6 to 7 years. These are worth something, anything less than 7 inches is not considered commercially viable.
There are no tax benefits to speak of in 7575 except for property taxes, which are very low anyway. Everything else has been done away with by now.
All teak thinnings are generally cut with thin kerf technology now.
Ask for clarification or more details if you wish. Usually the numbers you read out there are for large operations.
Fred
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