Our Spring 2009 issue of Tree Owners News is now online!

A Look Ahead

    This is a genuinely exciting time at Tropical American Tree Farms. All of our trees are continuing to grow and mature beautifully, irrespective of the Dow or the daily news.

    We are now less than a year away from the 17-year thinning of our first planting of seed-grown teak. These trees will be at an age where a significant portion of their lumber will be of higher quality that can go directly into the international market without any additional value-adding other than the normal milling, grading and drying.

    Several of our other fast growing species – mangium, nargusta and suradan, shown in the accompanying photos – are also in line for thinnings and will also be producing beautiful lumber.

    Overall next year we expect to produce between 4 million and 5 million board feet of lumber, both from the younger trees’ thinnings and upper logs of the older trees, all of which will likely go through some degree of value-adding to create the best returns, as well as the significant quantities of higher-quality adult lumber from the older thinnings.

    We are also excited that our Elite Teak Clone trees are exceeding their growth projections, with every tree genetically reproduced from parent trees rigorously selected to achieve the highest quality market-ready lumber at an earlier age of 14 years.

    As all of you who are tree owners or who read our Tree Owners News know, we developed Raleo, our sister company, to create value for the youngest hardwoods by producing exquisite furnishings and architectural details from the young lumber from the early thinnings. 

    Raleo has now been in production since 2004 and its beautiful furnishings and Surfaces crafted from our youngest tropical hardwoods are in some of the finest hotels, condominiums and residences in the world. Raleo is a wonderful emissary for our Tropical American Tree Farms hardwoods in the high-end designer and specifier markets.   An example of Raleo’s beautiful work is visible below.

    Anticipating the increased lumber production from the farms, as we wrote in our last Tree Owners News, we have been focusing intently on defining and developing additional, higher-volume value-added uses and applications to create value for the much greater young-lumber volume coming from the farms.

    In addition to our wonderfully committed in-house team, we also want to very much thank two very astute and very dedicated retired business executives who are also tree owners and have helped immeasurably in scouring and evaluating the world’s wood and wood products markets. Their research and help has been invaluable in our determining the value-added product mix that we will now begin to pursue to utilize the stock of young lumber from the farms as well as the upcoming increasing harvests.

Decision - Singleness of Purpose

    Because of the significantly increasing volumes of lumber coming from the farms, including the precious adult lumber from the older thinnings and soon final harvests, Sherry and I have made two important decisions, intended to benefit all of our tree owners.

    First, we have decided that the focus of our entire company now needs to be exclusively on continuing to groom the 2+ million trees on our farms for the greatest production of the highest quality lumber, the efficient harvest and processing of that lumber in ever increasing volumes, implementing the higher-volume value-adding production and marketing for the burgeoning flow of younger lumber from our early thinnings, and processing and marketing the higher volumes of precious adult lumber from the later thinnings and final harvests going directly into the world's markets.

    To be able to devote our complete focus to quality and volume, to producing, processing, value-adding, and marketing of wood and wood products, and reporting and remitting to our tree owners, Sherry and I have decided that 2009 will be our last public planting of new trees for the foreseeable future. 

    It will be a strong tug on our heartstrings to not continue to make new plantings available for everyone beyond this year's planting.

    But it is so very exciting, and important, to now dedicate all of our energy to producing the greatest rewards possible for everyone for whom we are growing trees and who have made all of this possible.

    Together we have come a very long way from the modest beginning of planting what we thought would be a few thousand trees on a few hundred acres of one farm.

    Other than the absolute joy of raising my two wonderful sons, this journey of planting and growing these precious tropical hardwood trees, growing the farms, working with our excellent teams, and now focusing exclusively on expanding the markets for and uses of all of our lumber, continues to be absolutely the most fulfilling experience of our lives.

Very Special Opportunity - Precious Older Trees Available

    The second decision that Sherry and I have made is that in preparation for the upcoming much larger scale harvesting, extraction, processing and production we will make available a limited quantity of the beautiful older trees that we are growing for our own Tropical American Tree Farms account to fund the additional extraction, processing and production equipment, facilities and personnel that will soon be required to harvest, process, and produce products from the upcoming much larger volumes of lumber.

    The wonderful older trees that we are making available are listed below.  They are all beautiful older trees, ranging from 7 to 14 years old, and as you can see from the photos, some of the faster growing species are already more than 70 feet tall and 12 inches in diameter. They are a wonderful opportunity to gain many years in the process of growing tropical hardwoods. 

    In addition to these being wonderful older trees, you will have the added benefit that as we mark your trees for you, we will mark only good trees, in many cases after one or more thinnings, so you will receive 100% good older trees.

    As a thank you to those of you who already own trees, you may include the quantity of trees you already own to arrive at your quantity pricing.

    If you would like to leap ahead many years and own some of these precious older trees, it would be a very good idea to order your older trees today because their quantity is quite limited. This is a unique opportunity that will not be available again.

    To own some of these beautiful older trees, you may use our regular Tree Order Form by writing in the quantity, planting year, and price per 100 trees from the table below. You are also welcome to use your Visa or MasterCard by simply completing the Voucher, scanning it and your completed Tree Order Form, and e-mailing both scanned forms to us. Or if you prefer, you are also welcome to fax both completed forms to 1-800-787-2813, toll free from North America, or 011-506-2291-0398 dialing direct.  Both the Tree Order Form and Voucher are available on our How to Order page.

    To be able to purchase these beautiful older trees is truly an extraordinary opportunity! 

    If you have ever thought of owning precious tropical hardwood trees, or if you are already a tree owner and are considering adding to the trees that you already own, these wonderful older trees are a unique opportunity that will not be available again! 

    The quantities of these beautiful older trees are quite limited, so whether as an investment, an asset for your IRA, or cherished gift, it would be good to order your older trees today!

    It is incredibly exciting to be embracing this transition to focus exclusively on quality, yield, production and marketing of our tropical hardwoods and products made from them.

    We hope that you share in this excitement!

A Near Perfect Asset

   We have recently received many warm comments from tree owners very thankful that they own tropical trees.

    Unlike other investments, you can enjoy the peace of mind knowing that your trees continue to grow and produce, irrespective of the stock market news.

    Bloomberg Wealth Manager writes that investing in trees grown for harvest, for profit is ". . . a source of almost assured growth in tumultuous times."

    Smart Money Magazine writes that " . . . real prices for timber have steadily risen for more than 100 years - better performance than any other commodity . . ."

    Smart Money also says that ". . . timber is a near perfect asset."

    You may enjoy reading Investing in Tropical Hardwoods excerpting more observations by top investment professionals in The Economist, Smart Money Magazine, MoneyWeek, and the Bloomberg Wealth Manager about investing in timber being grown for harvest.

Articles

    You may enjoy reading articles about Tropical American Tree Farms and Raleo, our sister company dedicated to creating exquisite furnishings and architectural surfaces crafted exclusively of the young tropical hardwoods from our tree farms.

Exciting Species

    Below you will find exciting information and projections for wonderful and productive species that we are making available. You can use the links below to jump down to each.

• 20-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones

• 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones

• Cuban Mahogany Trees

• Fast-Growing Oil-Producing Tropical Trees

20-Year Final Harvest 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.

    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 have selected nearly 100 of the very finest parent trees, with a selection ratio of one selected tree for each 3,000 to 5,000 candidate trees, and then reproduce those extremely select parent trees for planting in our plantations. This represents a quantum leap ahead. Growth, harvest and yield projections for these 20-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones are below. 

    Because they will all be only superior, select trees, these 20-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees will grow faster and produce 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.

    The photo to the right is of Elite Teak Clone trees 1 year old.

    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 20-Year Final Harvest 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 20-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones. To be conservative, these projections do not include the significantly higher values of the expected precious veneer logs.

   See also the Notes to Projections on our Projections page for more details.

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

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

NOTE: THE  PROJECTIONS ABOVE, AND THE EXPLANATORY NOTES, ARE PROVIDED FOR YOU TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF GROWING AND HARVESTING ELITE TEAK CLONE TREES IN OUR PLANTATIONS. 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.

14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones

    Sherry and I are excited that we now have available a limited quantity of beautiful, fast growing 14-Year Final Harvest 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 seed-grown 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 market without waiting for any value-added process. The 13-14 year old teak thinnings are producing limited quantities of FAS, FAS1, and Select grades, as well as Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Common teak lumber and lumber that will still need to go through a value adding process.  We won’t know until our sawyers mill many more logs the percentages of each quality of lumber that the 13-14 year teak trees will produce.

    The photo below is of Elite Teak Clone trees at 1 year of age.   

Top quality teak from our original 13-14 year seed-grown teak trees is bringing up to $6.15 per board foot on the local market. 

    Since all of 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.

    Our 20-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones projections above 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 20-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones projections above and harvesting all remaining trees at 14 years, the overall projected yield from 100 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees is nearly 12,000 board feet of lumber, and a net of approximately $52,000 if you choose to sell your lumber, which would be a 22.2% compounded return on investment. It is important to note that the 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones projections are based on selling the 14 year lumber, 14 years from now, at $6.43 per board foot, which is similar to the price that we have recently sold 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-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees.

    Because the $3,997 price per 100 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees is lower than the price for the 20-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clones, the rate of return for the 14-Year Final Harvest Elite Teak Clone trees increases to 22.2% 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 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. 

    Because these 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. 

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

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

NOTE: THE  PROJECTIONS ABOVE, AND THE EXPLANATORY NOTES, ARE PROVIDED FOR YOU TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF GROWING AND HARVESTING ELITE TEAK CLONE TREES IN OUR PLANTATIONS. 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 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. 

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 teak from 13-14 year thinnings being prepared to ship for a recent order.

Teak lumber from 13-14 year thinnings being prepared to ship

Fast-Growing Oil-Producing Tropical Trees

    We couldn't be more excited than we are right now, introducing to you two very special and exciting species of oil-producing tropical trees - Pongame Oil Tree and Jatropha. These two precious species of tropical trees produce seeds which when pressed in an expeller yield clean-burning oil that powers diesel generators, pumps, and other stationary machinery just as well as petroleum diesel. And with an additional step of processing, the oils from these two species can be used in modern diesel vehicles, either straight, or blended with petroleum diesel.

•     We first learned of Pongame Oil Tree and Jatropha trees several years ago and began our research. We learned that these two exceptional species have been grown, and their nuts or seeds harvested for their oil, in rural Africa and India for more than sixty years. Their oils have been used to power diesel generators and pumps in remote locations in India and Africa since World War II.

•     Just as with our tropical hardwood trees, Pongame Oil Tree and Jatropha fit perfectly our objectives of sustainably and profitably producing an increasingly scarce product, in this case oil for renewable energy, while at the same time protecting rainforests, providing employment in rural Costa Rica, and sharing the opportunity with you.

•     The recent unprecedented spike in petroleum prices has sharpened the free world's focus on the urgency of developing sources of renewable energy and fuels that are not in the control of countries and regimes that may use both their oil and the money they receive for their oil to threaten the rest of the world.

•     In striving to achieve energy independence, companies are now converting vast amounts of soybean, canola, sunflower, palm oil, and corn into fuel to reduce our demand for foreign petroleum. A very significant disadvantage however is that these same soybeans, corn and other crops are an important part of the world’s food supply, and shifting these crops from food to fuel is causing the world’s food prices to increase significantly. Higher food prices may be only a minor inconvenience for those more fortunate, but it is an overwhelming problem for millions of people in poorer parts of the world.

•     A clear solution to energy independence without diminishing the world's food supply is to grow and sustainably produce oils for renewable energy that are not coming from the world’s food crops and whose production does not use the best soils that are required for food production.

•     Both Pongame Oil Tree and Jatropha perfectly meet those requirements. Their seeds or nuts and the oil they produce are not edible, and they both are less demanding of the types of soils they are grown on. Neither takes from the world’s food production.

•     Both species also have the added advantages that their oils burn much more cleanly than petroleum fuels and the crushed seed residue or seed cake that remains after the oil extraction is a wonderful organic material that can be put right back into the soils around the trees as a green fertilizer.

•     The Pongame Oil Tree is a medium sized tree that grows to about 80 feet in height. Its seed and oil production begin in about the fourth year, and when in full production at about 8 years each tree can produce more than 40 pounds of seeds and more than 6 liters of oil per tree per year.

•     Jatropha is a smaller tree that is typically pruned to maintain a height of 7 to 9 feet to force multiple branching and increase seed production. Jatropha begins seed and oil production in the second year and reaches full production at about 5 years, producing approximately 7 pounds of seeds and more than one liter of oil per tree per year.

•     Because Jatropha is a much smaller tree and its land requirements are much less, we will grow Jatropha in multiples of 500 trees, with 500 Jatropha trees being priced the same as 100 of our Pongame Oil Trees.

    It is genuinely exciting that both of these precious species, Pongame Oil Tree and Jatropha, fit perfectly our vision, our capabilities, and our sixteen years’ experience planting and growing tropical trees. By growing these two wonderful species, together we will be sustainably producing a very much needed resource, oil for clean, renewable energy, and at the same time protecting more rainforest and providing additional employment in rural areas of Costa Rica.  These two species also have the added benefit that once they begin to produce, they yield seeds and oil, and economic return, every year.

    We have planted more than two million tropical hardwood trees so far and plan to plant an additional two million tropical hardwood trees in the next five to seven years.

    Our objective is to also plant two million of these two wonderful oil producing species, Pongame Oil Tree and Jatropha and sustainably produce approximately 2 million gallons of clean-burning oil per year for precious renewable energy.

    If you would like us to grow some of these wonderful oil producing trees for you, either individually or in your IRA or trust, or to add to the trees that you already own, they would be an excellent choice for a very early yield and return. Simply choose the species and quantity you would like to own and we do all the rest.

    You are welcome to use your Visa or MasterCard by simply completing our Tree Order Form and 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 completed Tree Order Form and Voucher toll free from North America to 1-800-787-2813, or dialing direct to country code 506 and then 2291-0398.

    Because both the Pongame Oil Trees and Jatropha trees are such a wonderful opportunity for an early yield and annual returns (see the projections below), they will likely be spoken for very quickly, so whether for the oil, for the annual income, as an asset for your IRA, or as a cherished gift that will be long remembered, it would be good to order your trees today.

    We have included below harvest and yield projections for both Pongame Oil Trees and Jatropha.

    These projections are based upon the Pongame Oil Trees beginning to bear seeds in the fourth year at the rate of 5 kg of seeds per tree, 10 kg per tree the fifth year, 15 kg per tree in the 6th year, and then 20 kg per tree for the years 7 through 25. Some Pongame Oil Tree projections show up to 50 kg per tree per year. They may be right, but we prefer to stay with the conservative figures below.

    The Jatropha trees begin to produce seeds earlier, yielding approximately 1.5 kg of seeds per tree in the third year, 2.25 kg per tree in the fourth year, and then 3 kg per tree for the years 5 through 25. We have read Jatropha projections as high as 7 to 10 kg of seeds per tree per year. They may be accurate, but as with everything we do, we prefer to stay with our conservative figures below.

    The figures below are based on the Pongame Oil Tree seeds producing oil equal to 30% of the weight of the seeds, and Jatropha 35%, and the oil for both species being priced at 85% of the price of petroleum diesel and increasing at 8.4% per year. Diesel and all petroleum products rose dramatically in their recent spike, but that spike is not included in our projections. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, diesel prices have risen at 8.4% per year for the last 14+ years.

    Most of the oil from crops going into fuels today actually are priced a little higher than petroleum diesel, but again we prefer to use conservative figures.

    In case you wonder about the demand for oils for energy, the US alone is consuming 60+ billion gallons of fuel oil annually.

    The economic yields for both species below are after deducting an estimated 30% harvest and processing cost and our 6% care and management fee.

    Neither of the projections below includes the added yield of selling seeds or rooted cuttings to other growers. Nor do they include the value of any of the oil going into the cosmetic or specialty soap industries, nor any value for the possible production of glycerin, bio-gas, or other processing byproducts. The value of any carbon credits is also not included in the projections below.

    As you can see in the figures below, if you elect to have us sell your oil for you, 100 Pongame Oil Trees are projected to yield an estimated $25,871 over the next 25 years beginning in the fourth year.  And 500 Jatropha trees are projected to yield $23,335 over the next 25 years beginning in the third year.

    If you have any questions at all, please call or e-mail. We will be happy to respond.

    We would love to grow these wonderful oil-producing trees for you.

NOTE: THE PROJECTIONS IN THE TABLE ABOVE ARE PROVIDED FOR YOU TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF GROWING AND HARVESTING SEEDS AND OIL FROM PONGAME OIL TREES AND JATROPHA TREES ON OUR FARMS. WHILE WE BELIEVE THESE ESTIMATES OF YIELDS TO BE FAIR AND REASONABLE, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THE FUTURE QUANTITY OR VALUE OF THE SEEDS OR OIL FROM YOUR TREES, NOR THE PROCEEDS YOU WILL RECEIVE FROM THEM.  IF YOUR DECISION TO HAVE US PLANT TROPICAL OIL-PRODUCING 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.

An Example of Raleo's Work

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

    We are now permitted to 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

    You may enjoy the whole article here.

    Young tropical hardwoods from our farms are truly beautiful.

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 $3.75 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. 

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

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