ITTO Market Update

   The ITTO just published their September 16-30 Tropical Timber Market Report. Although they are still not including reporting on the North American market, some comments they made with respect to teak are interesting.

    Writing about Ghana for example, the latest ITTO report says " Prices of Ghana’s timber and wood products, particularly teak logs and poles to India, improved by an average of USD30/m³ during the second quarter of 2008. The price rise was USD10/m³ more than the average of USD20/m³ in the first quarter. Harvesting from private teak plantations accounted for about 70% of the teak contracts approved during the second quarter."

    We of course sell only lumber and not logs because of the lumber's higher value, but the ITTO comments are still enlightening.

    The huge advantage of growing tropical hardwoods is that the prices of our hardwoods are significantly less volatile than we are seeing in the world's equity markets.

    The trees keep right on growing. And there is nothing that requires that we sell lumber into a down market if one comes along.

    We have recently received kind comments from tree owners thanking us for growing trees for them, that they are very happy to be owning trees instead of stocks and can sleep at night knowing that their investment in trees is steadily growing irrespective of the daily swings on Wall Street.

Tropical American Hardwoods

    We are very pleased to announce that now that our farms are producing substantial quantities of more mature tropical hardwoods that are of a quality that can go directly into the international market, we have established a sister company, Tropical American Hardwoods, to market our tropical hardwood lumber directly into the international wholesale market.

    As a small part of that marketing endeavor, Tropical American Hardwoods has created two new tropical hardwood wholesale marketing websites, one of which, EcoHardwoods.com, is to appeal directly to the environmentally conscious market segment.

    We anticipate that eventually Tropical American Hardwoods will market hardwoods produced by other tropical hardwood plantations as well.

    The two websites are Tropical American Hardwoods, and EcoHardwoods.

    Below are photos of FEQ, or highest quality, teak from 13-14 year thinnings being prepared to ship for a recent order.

FEQ teak lumber from 13-14 year thinnings being prepared to ship

14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones

    Sherry and I are excited to announce that we now have available a limited quantity of beautiful, fast growing Elite Teak Clone trees that will reach their final harvest in 14 years.

    We are often asked for tropical hardwood trees that can be harvested much sooner than 20 or 25 years. 

    We now are growing just such trees.

Some background.

    We have completed thinnings of some of our 13-14 year old original teak trees and have sawn a number of the logs into lumber.  We are very happy to confirm that part of the lumber from the 13-14 year old teak thinnings is of a quality that it can be sold directly into the international market without waiting for any value-added process. The 13-14 year old teak thinnings are producing FEQ, FAS, FAS1, Select, and Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Common teak lumber, as well as some lumber that will still need to go through a value adding process.  We won’t know until our sawyers saw many more logs the percentages of each quality of lumber that they will produce.

    The best quality or FEQ teak from our original 13-14 year teak trees is bringing $6.25 to $6.53 per board foot on the international market. 

    Since our Elite Teak Clones are produced from only the finest, fastest growing and best formed parent teak trees and therefore will grow taller, fatter, and straighter than our original teak trees grown from seed, and at each age will produce greater quantities of higher quality teak lumber than our original seed-grown teak trees, we decided to evaluate our Elite Teak Clones yield projections to determine the desirability of performing the final harvest much sooner than 20 years.

    You can read more about our Elite Teak Clones below.

    Our Elite Teak Clones projections below show that after allowing for a 10% mortality and cull, we will perform a thinning at 6 years, removing approximately 25% of the original quantity of trees, another at 10 years, removing another 25%, another thinning at 14 years, removing 20%, and leave the remaining 20% to grow until age 20.

    Now knowing that 14 year old trees of our original teak trees grown from seed can produce marketable lumber and that the Elite Teak Clones will produce more and better quality lumber at an earlier age than our original teak, we decided to test the numbers to see the results if we manage certain fields of the Elite Teak Clone trees to harvest all of the remaining trees in the field at 14 years, rather than 20% at 14 years and 20% at 20 years.

The numbers are truly exciting! 

    Using the same numbers as are in our Elite Teak Clones projections and harvesting all remaining trees at 14 years, the overall projected yield from 100 Elite Teak Clone trees is more than 12,000 board feet of lumber, and a net of $65,922 if you choose to sell your lumber, which would be a 23% compounded return on investment. It is important to note that the Elite Teak Clones projections are based on selling the 14 year lumber, 14 years from now, at $6.79 per board foot, which is slightly more than the price that we are presently selling 13-14 year seed-grown FEQ teak lumber for today.

It gets even better!  

    Because we will be caring for the 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees for only 14 years rather than 20 years, and because the cost of the use of the land will be for only 14 years rather than 20 years, our costs for the 14-year final harvest Elite Teak Clone trees will be significantly less than for 20 or 25 year teak trees.

    Because of those lower costs, the price for the 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees is only $3,997 per 100 trees, almost $1,000 less than the 20 and 25 year teak trees. (The $3,997 will soon likely increase with the impending tree price increase that we have indicated below.)

    Because the $3,997 price per 100 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees is lower than the price for the 20 year teak trees, the rate of return for the 14-year final harvest Elite Teak Clone trees increases to 25% compounded, an incredible return for those of you who elect to sell your lumber or have us sell your lumber for you. We have included a copy of the 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees projections below.

    Sherry and I couldn’t be more excited about these 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees, nor more proud to make a limited quantity of these beautiful, fast growing 14-year final harvest Elite Teak Clone trees available.   

    If you have thought of owning tropical hardwood trees, or adding to the trees you already own, these beautiful 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees would be an excellent choice for a very early yield and return.

    You are welcome to use your Visa or MasterCard by simply completing our Tree Order Form and a card Voucher, available on our How to Order page, and scanning and e-mailing them both to us. Or if you prefer, you are also welcome to fax your Tree Order Form and Voucher to 1-800-787-2813, toll free from North America, or 011-506-2291-0398 dialing direct.

    Because these 2008 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees are such a wonderful opportunity for an early yield and returns, they will likely be spoken for very quickly, so it would be good to order your trees today. 

    Whether as part of planning for your retirement, as an asset for your IRA or trust, or as a cherished gift that will be long remembered, we encourage you to order these beautiful 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones now. 

Please scroll down to read more about Elite Teak Clones.

14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone Projections - 100 Trees

(Note:  Please scroll to the right to view the entire table)

NOTE: AS ALWAYS, WE INCLUDE THE CAVEAT THAT THE PROJECTIONS IN THIS TABLE, AND THE EXPLANATORY NOTES, ARE PROVIDED FOR YOU TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF GROWING AND HARVESTING ELITE CLONE TEAK TREES. WHILE WE BELIEVE THESE ESTIMATES OF GROWTH, COSTS AND YIELDS TO BE FAIR AND REASONABLE, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THE FUTURE VALUE OF YOUR TREES, NOR THE LUMBER OR PROCEEDS YOU WILL RECEIVE FROM THEIR HARVEST. IF YOUR DECISION TO HAVE US PLANT TROPICAL HARDWOOD TREES FOR YOU IS MOTIVATED BY THE EXPECTATION OF FUTURE PROFITS, WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO SEEK THE COUNSEL OF AN INDEPENDENT PROFESSIONAL WHO CAN EVALUATE THE REASONABLENESS AND ACCURACY OF THESE PROJECTIONS.

Tree Prices Going Up!

    This year's planting season is now well underway. We have held our pre-planting prices as long as we can and must now raise them. We will shortly post the new prices. 

Elite Teak Clones! 

    We have sought for years a method to select and reproduce only the finest, fastest growing and best formed teak trees for planting in our plantations, both to increase the economic yield and to shorten the time to final harvest.

   With the blessing of Pablo Chacon now being part of our full-time forestry management team, that dream is finally possible. Pablo is one of the leading experts in Central America in genetic improvement of plantation species.

Steve and Pablo in one of our teak clone shade houses

    Under Pablo's professional guidance and supervision we can now offer elite cloned teak trees, vegetatively reproduced or cloned from the very finest quality superior teak trees individually chosen from hundreds of thousands of teak trees, selected for their rapid and vigorous growth, excellent form, straight continuous boles or trunks, smaller branches for smaller knots, straight grain, and excellent wood quality.

    Scroll down for the yield projections for the Elite Teak Clones.

    Since 1991 when we started Tropical American Tree Farms, we have always only planted trees from quality seeds or seedlings, but with any trees grown from seed we can know only the quality of the trees that produced the seeds and not the trees that provided the pollen. There is simply no way of knowing the genetics or quality of the pollen contributor.

    Now, with Pablo's expert guidance, we can select the very finest parent trees, one each out of approximately 5,000 candidate trees, and then reproduce those extremely select trees for planting in our plantations. This represents a quantum leap ahead. Growth, harvest and yield projections for these elite teak clones are below. 

    Because they will all be only superior, select trees, these elite teak clones will grow faster, with likely earlier thinnings and final harvest, and produce at each stage greater quantities of higher quality beautiful teak lumber, and if you elect to have us sell your lumber for you, a significantly greater and earlier economic yield.

    Our Elite Teak Clones are from hundreds of select parent trees and we have planted them in the field so that trees of the various parent trees are distributed throughout the plantings to maintain genetic diversity in the fields.

    Imagine the wonderful lumber yield from owning only the very best, fastest growing, highest quality teak trees, all elite specimen trees hand selected from hundreds of thousands of candidate trees!

    An even more exciting prospect is that these Elite Teak Clone trees have a greater probability of producing a larger quantity of veneer-quality logs which can yield many times the value shown in our projections below for sawn lumber.

    We have included below growth, harvest and yield projections for our Elite Teak Clones. The calculations and assumptions for our Elite Teak Clones are the same as for our teak planted from seed except that we have reduced the mortality and cull loss for the Elite Teak Clones to 10% because there will be fewer culls, and the growth assumptions for our Elite Teak Clones are 15% greater on average than for teak trees planted from seed. To be conservative, the growth we have projected for our Elite Teak Clones is still less than some of our best teak trees planted from seed are actually growing.

   Similarly, for the projected thinning and harvest dates for our Elite Teak Clones, where our foresters specified a range, we chose the longer date. For example, they said that the first thinning would be after 5 or 6 years, we chose 6 years. And they projected the final harvest of the elite teak clones to be from 18 to 20 years, so we chose 20 years.

    The projections below do not include any provision for the expected high-value veneer logs.

   Other than these items above, the Notes to Projections on our Projections page also apply.

20-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone Projections - 100 Trees

(Note:  Please scroll to the right to view the entire table)    

NOTE: AS ALWAYS, WE INCLUDE THE CAVEAT THAT THE  PROJECTIONS IN THIS TABLE, AND THE EXPLANATORY NOTES, ARE PROVIDED FOR YOU TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF GROWING AND HARVESTING ELITE CLONE TEAK TREES. WHILE WE BELIEVE THESE ESTIMATES OF GROWTH, COSTS AND YIELDS TO BE FAIR AND REASONABLE, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THE FUTURE VALUE OF YOUR TREES, NOR THE LUMBER OR PROCEEDS YOU WILL RECEIVE FROM THEIR HARVEST. IF YOUR DECISION TO HAVE US PLANT TROPICAL HARDWOOD TREES FOR YOU IS MOTIVATED BY THE EXPECTATION OF FUTURE PROFITS, WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO SEEK THE COUNSEL OF AN INDEPENDENT PROFESSIONAL WHO CAN EVALUATE THE REASONABLENESS AND ACCURACY OF THESE PROJECTIONS.

Cuban Mahogany Trees!

    One of the wonderful benefits of our excellent farms management team is that Pablo Chacon, one of our lead forestry engineers, specializes in tree nursery techniques, tree genetics, and hardwood species establishment.

    We made a special request to Pablo to please do all he could to locate a source of the extremely scarce and very valuable Cuban Mahogany, one of the finest and most expensive furniture woods in the world. After a concerted search Pablo was successful in locating a high quality seed source and we now have a limited quantity of Cuban Mahogany trees field-planted in our  Tropical American Tree Farms plantations.

    For centuries Cuban Mahogany, the "Wood of Kings", was the premier cabinet wood in the world, sought after by the royalty of the world and the wood of choice for such renowned furniture makers of that era as Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Duncan Phyfe.

    Because of its great beauty, Cuban Mahogany was harvested nearly out of existence by the beginning of the 20th century, and by the late 1940's had become essentially commercially extinct.  

Cuban Mahogany

    Much more beautiful and 50% more dense than the common Honduran mahogany, Cuban Mahogany wood today can be found only in limited quantities and is by far the most expensive of the tropical hardwoods that we are growing, selling at retail for prices ranging from $20 to $75 per board foot, and sometimes even sold by the pound. Teak by comparison, also a precious tropical hardwood, retails for $12 to $20 per board foot.

    We are very proud to now grow Cuban Mahogany for discerning tree owners. 

An Example of Raleo's Work

    In our Summer 2007 Tree Owners News we wrote that Raleo had just completed beautiful products for two luxury yachts, all crafted from the young tropical hardwoods from our tree farms.

    We can now report that one of the two yachts is the 161 foot Lady Michele, featured in the September 2007 issue of Boat International USA.

    Boat International writes that “One of the most eye catching elements on board is the spiral central stairway that connects the three decks” and acknowledges that the Pillow wall of three storey stair barrel is by Raleo. 

Raleo teak Pillow panels of Lady Michele spiral stair barrel

Looking down three decks showing Raleo teak Pillow panels

    Raleo was also commissioned to craft the panels and doors of the Sky Lounge in this magnificent yacht.

Lady Michele Sky Lounge with panels and doors by Raleo

    Young tropical hardwoods from our farms are truly beautiful.

Article about Tropical American Tree Farms

    A very kind article about Tropical American Tree Farms has recently been published in the on-line Woodworkers Journal at http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/wwj/index.cfm/free.viewArticle/article/1956/sectionId/5..

Teak Lumber Prices

    The best published independent authority we have found for international large-scale wholesale tropical lumber prices is the ITTO, or International Tropical Timber Organization, which publishes frequent Tropical Timber Market Reports with, in their words, “the aim of improving transparency in the international tropical timber market.”

    The February 15, 2008  ITTO Tropical Timber Market Report, their most recent report that includes the US imported sawnwood prices, shows that the average US Imported Sawnwood Prices for rough sawn teak lumber is $2,125 per cubic meter, or $5.01 per board foot. 

    In the same Market Report, the price reported for first quality teak lumber in the U.K. market is $4,160 to $4,804 per cubic meter, or $9.81 to $11.33 per board foot.

    Clearly our trees are still young and their lumber is not yet at its prime, and not every log will yield first quality lumber, but it is exciting that the actual prices independently reported for adult teak are significantly higher than the conservative $3.00 per board foot beginning price for adult teak in our projections.

Note:  To calculate the per board foot price, divide the cubic meter prices by 424, the number of board feet in a cubic meter. 

Trees as a Tangible Investment

    You may enjoy reading in Trees as a Tangible Investment the positive observations by top investment professionals in The Economist, Smart Money Magazine, and the Bloomberg Wealth Manager about investing in trees for harvest. A few excerpts:

• ". . . timber is a near perfect asset"

• ". . . real prices for timber have steadily risen for more than 100 years - better performance than any other commodity . . ."

• "clients inclined toward socially responsible investing will find even more to like in timber . . .."

    We thank you very much for your interest in Tropical American Tree Farms™.

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