When you want to buy groceries or clothes, you walk into the store and read a tag or sticker that tells you exactly how much you must pay to get each item.

Your trees have no price tags hanging on them, so foresters and timber buyers have to calculate for themselves their worth by first doing a timber cruise and appraisal.

Timber Cruise & Appraisal

Since the typical forest holds from 100-1000 or more trees per acre, your forester will rarely count all trees, but instead will measure a sample of trees and use statistics to estimate the total volume in your forest. This is called an inventory or cruise.

After doing the cruise, the forester estimates the timber value based on species, size, and end use, as well as location, access, terrain, density, and other features of your forestland. Forester’s estimates of timber volume and value will differ, depending on which trees they sampled, the date of valuation, the intended end market, and their expertise in cruising and appraisal.

Accuracy of the cruise is always increased by taking tree measurements on a larger percentage of your forest acreage. If your forest is all planted pines of one age, the percent cruised can be less. If tree species and size varies a lot, more samples will be needed. Foresters often cruise 2-5% of the forest for general planning purposes. If timber is being sold, a 10% cruise is more common.

Family Divisions

FCI’s consultants can assist your family in dividing forestland between heirs or designees. This is done by:

• Discussing family goals and preferences
• Cruising and valuing the timber
• Delineating land types and identifying assessed values
• Proposing possibilities and strategies for equitable divisions
• Teaming with attorneys, accountants, land appraisers, and surveyors as needed to complete the project.

Dividing family property can be stressful and challenging, but your FCI consultant can make the trail smoother! Contact FCI Today!