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 cloned teak 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.

    It is also important to note that we will soon increase the elite teak clone prices somewhat above the standard teak pricing shown on our How to Order page.

    If you would like to own some of these exciting and beautiful elite cloned teak trees, it would be a good idea to order them now because their quantity is quite limited.  Simply mark "clone" beside Teak on your Tree Order Form. We will be excited to grow them for you!

    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 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 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, 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.

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 disclose that one of the two yachts is the 161 foot Lady Michele, currently 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 January 15, 2008  ITTO Tropical Timber Market Report 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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