Tuesday, October 27, 2009

How to sell black walnut trees - Walnut tree buyers


Homeowners and Landowners often call our office with questions about wanting to know how to sell their black walnut trees. Most of the time they are asking if we will come out and take a look at them. They have heard somewhere that these trees are worth quite a bit of money. Unfortunately, this is not usually true for walnuts grown in an urban setting. In an urban setting, many walnut trees have some type of metal in them which substantially decreases their value. Unless they are of exceptional size and quality, we cannot estimate and buy any less than 5 to 10 walnut trees. If you are still convinced that the walnut trees in your back yard are sell worthy, feel free to email us pictures of the trees at 9westtimberconsulting@gmail.com.

The biggest reason why we are not likely to purchase urban walnuts is because of the risk that they may contain objects embedded in the trunk that could pose a substantial risk for injury when removing or processing the tree. If the tree is large enough for the owner to consider selling it for lumber, it could very likely have metal object from 50 years ago in its trunk that the owner would have never known existed.

In a forest setting, most of the time, walnut trees do have good value. Walnut trees are often used for furniture, art, gun stocks, and many other wood products because of their color, grain and ease of working with the wood. While most walnut logs are turned into lumber, the premium logs are turned into veneer. Veneer is a very thin sheet of wood that covers a type of plywood to give the appearance of walnut for a much lower cost.

Whatever the walnut is used for, there are several characteristics that determines how valuable the walnut trees are, including trunk diameter, height, where the branching starts and what type of defects the trees have . Also, we tend to look for walnut trees with a diameter of more than 18 inches.

Tree quality is another consideration. The quality is based on how free the trunk is from defects such as crookedness, branches, holes, bumps, cracks, scars, insect or disease damage. The less defects, the more valuable the tree.

If you think you may have a tree that does meet the characteristics for a valuable lumber or veneer tree, feel free to contact us.

If you have a forestland with considerable amount of walnut trees, please call us @ 317-440-3490 or sign up for a FREE CONSULTATION.

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