With nearly 50 years of experience, Greg Hay is a reforestation advisor with ArborGen and is the newly-elected President of the Arkansas Forestry Association. In this episode of In Our Expert Opinion Real Estate Podcast, Greg joins Arkansas Managing Director, David Hill, to share his expertise in logging, conservation, carbon credits, and timberland investment in Arkansas.
David and Greg also explore the lucrative opportunities in timberland investment in Arkansas, discussing the competitive returns it offers compared to traditional asset classes and its potential for income diversification through hunting leases and carbon credits.
Below is an excerpt from the interview. Listen above for the full podcast.
Greg Hay, ArborGen and Arkansas Forestry Association
What makes Arkansas forestry unique? In Arkansas, as opposed to the eastern seaboard, we've got two species of pine that we deal with: the shortleaf pine in the northern and western parts of the state, and loblolly pine in the southern part of the state. We're landlocked, so we don't have any coastline that we're involved with. We don't have the variety of species that they might have over in Florida. For instance, we don't have the longleaf, we don't have slash, and we don't have sand pine.
What sustainable forestry practices can be found in Arkansas? I define sustainability, when it comes to forestry, as the professional management of our forests. If the forests are managed professionally, they're going to be sustainable and resilient. For some of the practices that we have, in terms of reforestation, there's natural regeneration, where you have trees that are out there producing cones and seeds that naturally regenerate on the forest floor; both shortleaf and loblolly.
In the southern part of the state, it's predominantly loblolly. The practices that we use include site preparation, and that might be chemical site preparation with herbicides. It might include–in the north where you've got the rocky hills of the Ozarks and the Ouachitas–ripping, where we have dozers with two rear-mounted steel shanks and ripping to an average depth of about 18 inches. That allows us to place the roots in the moisture-retaining clay horizons.
Burning is another practice that's often used for site preparation where planter access is needed, for wildlife habitat improvement, and for fuel reduction. That's another great tool that we have.
David Hill, Regional Managing Director in Arkansas, is joined by Greg Hay of ArborGen to discuss forestry and timberland investment on the In Our Expert Opinion Real Estate Podcast.
How can the state improve its turkey population? One aspect that helps our turkey habitat is the “edge effect” from cutting; whether that's a harvest area where we're rotating the trees off of the land or whether it's a thinning practice where we're opening up and making certain that that we continue to have the vigorous, healthy, resilient stand that we want.
When we're doing harvest rotations, and when we're doing thinnings, we open up the forest floor to more sunlight. When you have more sunlight, you're producing more forbs and legumes. Those forbs and legumes are going to increase your insect population, and that's going to help your turkey situation.
Burning will also proliferate that ground vegetation that you see–the weeds and grasses. That seed bank that's in that soil, when it's exposed through a burn, you allow it to germinate. You've got to have that burn that helps remove that duff layer that allows better germination, and most importantly, the sunlight on the forest floor.
What are some land conservation programs in Arkansas? There are various cost-share programs out here today offered by the government that will pay a portion of the cost of eligible conservation practices–those include forestry practices as well as agricultural practices. One of them is the Forest Stewardship Program (FSP), and it provides assistance to forest landowners for practices that will enhance or sustain healthy forests.
With regard to developing a forest management plan, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is run by the Farm Service Agency. That provides cost-share dollars to farmers with a crop history on their land, providing incentives to put a portion of their land into conservation.