DATE: 5/9/2006

CONTACT: Bob Franklin, (843) 538-7487; rmfrnkl@clemson.edu

WRITER: Tom Lollis, (803) 284-3343, ext. 241; tlollis@clemson.edu

Interest in longleaf pine plantings gains steam with S.C. landowners

CLEMSON – Longleaf pine, the king of all Southern pines, is growing in interest among South Carolina landowners, according to a Clemson University Extension Service forester.

“Longleaf is the highest quality, most valuable and the most resistant to insects, diseases and wind damage of all the Southern pines,” says Bob Franklin, who is working with the South Carolina Lowcountry Forest Conservation Program, an effort to protect 2.9 million acres of forest lands in the state’s Coastal Plain.

Longleaf accounted for 8.5 million acres of South Carolina forests in 1883, but had dropped to less than 300,000 acres before climbing to 369,054 in 1993. The U.S. Forest Service indicated acreage had reached 424,892 in 2001.

“The 15 percent increase over the 1993 figures is the first increase in longleaf acreage since records have been kept,” said Franklin.

Based on the response from more than 150 landowners and professional foresters attending three workshops this spring, he believes that trend will continue.

The Lowcountry Partnership, sponsored by the Doris Duke Foundation, the Longleaf Alliance and the American Forest Foundation’s Forested Flyways sponsored the workshops, which were held at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center (REC) near Florence, the Edisto REC near Blackville and at Cypress Bay Plantation near Cummings.

“Participants indicated that they will plant more than 2,000 acres of longleaf in the coming year and will strongly consider converting pine plantations to longleaf in the coming years as they harvest existing plantations,” said Franklin.

“Longleaf doesn’t make sense for short-term rotations for pulp and paper, but for long-term rotations, it’s the best choice,” said Mark Hainds, research coordinator fort the Longleaf Alliance at the Solon Dixon Forestry Education Center in Andalusia, Ala.

He said that landowners are beginning to grow for the long-term because of declining prices on wood grown for paper. Paper companies can buy raw material cheaper from places like Brazil, Indonesia and New Zealand.

Hainds said that one forester with more than 50years experience in Mississippi tracked timber sales for 20 years. When broken out into longleaf pine versus all other pine species, 90 percent loblolly, for each 1,000 board feet longleaf received a premium of 20-25 percent regardless of the market.

“That’s a strong argument for anyone growing trees for more than 20 years,” he said. “I believe longleaf, on virtually any site, can be within 20 percent of the volume of loblolly.”

He said longleaf is now easier to plant than it used to be. Landowners can obtain more than 90 percent survival with recently developed container-grown seedlings. Tree planters and foresters report that they average about 85 percent survival for container seedlings versus 65 percent for bare root seedlings. Hainds expects container-grown longleaf seedlings to claim about 85 percent of production next year, versus 15 percent for bare root.

He said that since 1996 about 60 million longleaf seedlings have been grown annually. That number is holding steady as other species show a dramatic drop. About a billion loblolly pines were planted in 1996, but those numbers are down to about 400 million today.

Resistance to hurricanes is a plus for longleaf pine. Hainds said that studies of forests in south Mississippi damaged by Katrina in 2005 showed 75 percent of loblollies broken, 37 percent of slash pine broken and less than 10 percent of longleaf broken and about 10 percent uprooted. Uprooted trees can be salvaged for timber.

He said that longleaf is the ideal choice for growers with multiple objectives, which can include aesthetics and recreational uses such as hunting. Raking longleaf pine needles for sale as mulch can also produce $75 an acre and more.

“There is a difference between what produces the most wood and what gives you the most return because pulpwood is very low in value,” he said.

Franklin said that the three workshops reached the owners and managers of more than a half million acres of land in South Carolina. Participants indicated that what they learned would help them save more than $124,000 and earn more than $517,000 in the future in their management efforts with longleaf pine.

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