Selling Pine Straw for Profit
Pinestraw is fast be…
Pinestraw is fast becoming the desired mulch and landscaping material for gardeners and homeowners in suburban America. This emerging trend provides an additional way pertaining to a pine forest to provide more income to the forest manager. This article will help those considering growing pine trees for harvesting know the system and details surrounding it.
A pine forest is ready for the 1st needle harvest when an already established stand of pines get to a minimum of Eight years in age. Needle production from a pine stand enhances with age to a maximum at Fifteen years. You should spend some time maximizing the collection of fresh new needles by way of the removal of all cones, limbs and other plants ahead of raking and baling. This kind of clean-up on the forest floor will make harvest much easier to accomplish and a better product for sale.
Raking and baling is much easier if you have long pine needles. A shorter needled pine tree is nearly difficult to put together in the right way for handling, transporting and spreading. The correct pines to utilize are members belonging to the southern yellow pine group and in particular slash pine and longleaf pine.
It has been learned that Oct and November are usually the best months to harvest pine straw because it’s when you will harvest the most in the finest condition. Dry temperatures in most cases come with these months which make harvesting less difficult. Do not forget that pine trees grow in height all through the spring and summer. When this occurs also, they are growing pine needles with very little tendency to shed.
Fertilizer can often boost tree development and replace a lot of the vitamins and minerals that are removed with raking. Fertilization may also increase pine needle production. Studies have shown that 2 to 5 times more needle growth occurs after fertilization.
Private landowners often sell their particular longleaf pine straw to producers, which do the raking and baling. The producer pays by the bale. The price varies from Twenty-five cents to a dollar per bale, with an average of around fifty cents.
A number of landowners rake and bale their own straw and then sell it directly to the retailer or user. Many that do so have garden sheds. The optimal source of info on pine needle mulch is with the agricultural extension forester or perhaps your state forester.
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