Yet another study confirms hockey stick

Again, these must be old mills using antiquated technology (most US pulp mills are obsolete and inefficient), because modern pulp mills certainly use spruce, and consider it desirable:

"Spruce is one of the most important woods for paper uses, as it has long wood fibres which bind together to make strong paper. The fibres are thin walled and collapse to thin bands upon drying. Spruces are commonly used in mechanical pulping as they are easily bleached. Together with northern pines, northern spruces are commonly used to make NBSK. Spruces are cultivated over vast areas as pulpwood."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce#Pulpwood

You would need to provide some evidence for a claim like that. Spruce is highly valued for both sawmilling and pulp use as it is light but very strong (light aircraft manufacturers have used spruce for wing spars). Cedar also commands a good price for sawmilling (but it depends on the species, as some "cedar" species are actually from entirely different families) as it resists insect damage and rot. Hickory and sweetgum are hardwoods, and many pulp mills would not be able to use them as they don't suit the chemical dissolution and fiber recovery processes used for longer-fibered softwoods.

 

Then verifiable proof should be very easy for you to source

Until then what you are posting is opinion not fact

 

Sure, if I cared to try to educate someone who chooses not to learn.

No. It is fact. It is merely fact that you decline to know. Facts do not become opinions merely through not being supported to your satisfaction.

 

Maybe too many ignorant environmentalists are wiping their ass for recycled paper because they are dumb enough to think that it helps reduce logging only to lower demand causing pulp to go to waste.

 

After doing some more homework I stand by my post. According to the U.S. forest service spruce pine is hard, brittle and of limited use. it is sometimes used for pulpwood, and its commercial value seems to be better for christmas trees.

I work with a person that grew up in the paperwood business (his father and most of his relatives cut paperwood) and he agrees.

If you find a good stand of cedar, and the trees are big enough you may be able to sell them. But down here Loblolly pine is king. We used to destroy thousands of acres of Spruce to plant Loblolly. We also "injected" thousands of Poplar, Oak, and other trees with 2-4-D.

The money you make from wood depends on how far you are from the mill, how much you pay, how many times you get stuck, and the price the mill is paying. A monoculture of loblolly pine is easy to harvest, in demand, and can be sold as saw timber, plywood, or pulpwood.

Hardwood has been going up in price lately however. I am not sure we have the mills to handle sawtimber from hardwoods....but I don't really know about that. I do have a buddy that owns a small sawmill and he will cut anything. But after sawtimber is cut it also has to be dried.

 

Well sorry but the rest of the world disagrees with you..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce

And...

http://www.2020site.org/trees/spruce.html

There are MANY, MANY uses for spruce wood, they are not wasted even wherever "down here" is. Lumber farmed in the south is used and shipped everywhere, and not just to local mills. They would no sooner waste those trees as they would waste any other.

 

Look up pinus galabra.

Then look up the hardiness zones for the type of spruce you mentioned.

believe it or not some trees will not grow here...blue spruce and fur are two of them.

 

And they are used as pulp wood as well.. The problem is it might have been done that way years ago, but now the amount of fines that can be levied on a logging firm for such action makes the profit of it untenable. Now days some firm or company erroneously poisons or burns trees, that can be used as pulp, not only lessens the value on the lumber site as a whole, but also risks fines and levies and other penalties which will make the entire task a loss of money.

Got a nephew by marriage who has been a logger for 20 years. he cut lumber from southern Ohio down to the gulf states and the Florida Glades. According to him and every bit of info I can gather on it, there literally is no wasted cutting, and certainly no wasted lumber. What they cut or clear they use as much as possible, and what they cannot use if healthy is left to grow and mature unhindered by the larger trees which may have blocked or hindered it's progress to be cut at a later time,OR cleared and sent to a pulp mill which could be as close as that state or as far away as Japan. They don't value the job or track to be cut or cleared by the inherent value of each tree. They value the area and job on pure dollar value as a whole, which means even the scrubs and less valuable trees.

it may cost more individually to clear the less valuable lumber or trees, but they don't compare it that way. They take that loss from the more valuable trees profit margin. It may lessen the money gained per each valuable tree, but it increases the overall value by making the most of all the resources available. Pulp mills are all over, and they always need materials to make paper products.the demand is always there, people always need more paper. If they get overstocked in one area, another needs product.

 

What is "spruce pine"?

Whatever it is. Spruce, OTOH, is highly desired for both sawmilling and pulp.

Maybe because he grew up supplying pulp mills that are now obsolete.

Might be a question of climate. In certain areas loblolly pine grows really fast, so it's preferred for tree farming.