Bidding war.

Couple weeks back an Amish timber outfit marked trees and made an offer for 105 trees (no cherry, just poplar, red oak, white oak and ash.) So they make an offer. Today, a guy shows up from a different timber outfit and makes a higher offer for the same trees. So I go on the state forestry web site and check prices of timber. Red oak is like $520 per MBFT The Amish outfit offered $70. The guy today said $400 for the red oak. How do I compare the reported timber prices with what is standing in the woods? Are the reported prices delivered to the mill, or standing in the woods?

one thing I will say when the amish get done your land wont be beat and rutted up. last I knew they only use mules. but that is a bunch of price difference. the logger see if he will tell you where he last worked and go look at it and talk to the land owner and see if he was left happy or not. the red oak and ash have health issues now(oak wilt and ash borers) so I would try to sell them now also.

Ask about "best practices". Around here the state forest (Ohio) requires loggers to be trained in and comply with methods that reduce impact such as erosion.

It is also possible to hire an independent forester to supervise the sale and harvest.

Around here, some Amish use big machinery or hire out that part of the job.

The only way to sell timber is to hire a forester (about 10% fee) who'll manage the sale from marking the trees, help evaluate bids, and seeing the harvest done properly. I have a reference for central Ohio who has done jobs in my area. The one I'm familiar with held a seminar locally last year, and had a lot of worthwhile info. Especially a bid sheet that showed a recent job he bid that had a high bid about triple the low bid. He also stated that veneer trees don't need to have 4 good faces since almost all veneer is sliced, not rotary cut. He also claims that the big forwarders can level any ruts leaving a woods leveled and not rutted. They also have big advantage over the Amish loggers by using the winches to place felled trees, especially leaners.

Your experience thus far should be throwing up flares left and right telling you to hire a professional consultant. Sounds like Dale has you covered.