wood logs vs. wood chips

[Kevin]

do they sell for the same price? Say I cut down a tree and cut that into logs do I get the same amount selling it that way as I would if I turned the tree into wood chips?

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Angus Kennedy:

i think wood is wood in any form for price - that's what it shows in list.
There is a wood chip symbol and that's all, so wood is wood.

that is what I was thinking. Just wanted to make sure before I spent money on buying chipping equipment. Thanks for the reply.

[aristoprat]

The price for wood chips varies over time like any of the other commodities. The price for logs varies dependent on length, the "straightness" and the diameter. I believe the optimum length is 6m but I have not messed with logging much so I can't say that is definitive or which route (logs vs chips) is most profitable. The fact that the price for chips varies may mean that sometimes logs are more profitable, other times it's chips. I have seen comments that chips are less profitable in FS19 than they were in 17.

[Usedfireball]

Large, straight logs are worth more as a log, but can be a bear to handle.

Some wood chip sell point mod showed up today on a site or two I look at for mods, if I interpret the crude translation then the author claims to have adjusted the price to be the same as the "regular sale" which I don't know if that means a chipped log would be worth the same as an identical normal log or not. Price scale (increase or decrease over normal price) is 3.5, normal would be 1. So thinking the chips from a log need to be 3.5X the regular price to equal log price?

I don't have a chance to test it out right now but would take making two identical logs (or maybe cut a log, sell it by itself and write down the amount, then exit without saving and reload the saved game and chip said log and see what price it brings. Would have to turn off auto save and then exit without saving after doing the save when you cut the log at first.

Also was planning on toying with the log value vs. length, using a modified forestry machine that can do all the way up to 16m logs. Just take the same total length from a tree with the cutter and toy with different log lengths.

[Milk Drinker]

just for later reference if somebody would look for this info:

I tried to sell a tree as woodchip and as wood, only the branches, not the actual expensive logs and still
-branches sold as wood earned me 2100
-branches sold as woodchip earned me 680

conclusion: in farm sim 19 its NOT worth buying any woodchipping equipment or sell wood as woodchip. even the crappiest peace of little thin branches are worth 3.5x if its sold as wood.

:( sad... this way the only use for it is if you really REALLY don't want to care collecting and loading and selling the branches, then you can use the chipper machine

[Tankfriend]

As was said, woodchips earn you much less than logs.
BUT you have to take into account that selling chips is also usually simpler, faster, and cheaper to do than selling logs (because of how complicated log loading and transporting can be in this game).

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Long, straight logs traditionally sell for more. Just think about that from the perspective of a construction contractor perusing a Home Depot. Large joists in construction projects need to come from somewhere. So they need large, straight trees to begin with. The longest ones are rare, so they go for a LOT. Most of your log cuts will likely be 'average' length and you won't see much variation in price for that range, but you get the really good ones that get freakishly long, and you may start seeing the value jump dramatically.

In FS17, if you could get an absurdly long log loaded and hauled to the sawmill, you could get some serious pricing per unit. My memory is shoddy, but I recall logs around 12 grand from my logging ops, with more average logs being in the 5 to 7 grand range. A trailer load of these usually net me around 98 to 120 k.

[jasonharris2]

Originally posted by AdmiralTigerclaw:

Long, straight logs traditionally sell for more. Just think about that from the perspective of a construction contractor perusing a Home Depot. Large joists in construction projects need to come from somewhere. So they need large, straight trees to begin with. The longest ones are rare, so they go for a LOT. Most of your log cuts will likely be 'average' length and you won't see much variation in price for that range, but you get the really good ones that get freakishly long, and you may start seeing the value jump dramatically.

In FS17, if you could get an absurdly long log loaded and hauled to the sawmill, you could get some serious pricing per unit. My memory is shoddy, but I recall logs around 12 grand from my logging ops, with more average logs being in the 5 to 7 grand range. A trailer load of these usually net me around 98 to 120 k.

fs19 i get 40 to 50k for a load of logs

[beerdrinker69]

Originally posted by jasonharris2:

Originally posted by AdmiralTigerclaw:

Long, straight logs traditionally sell for more. Just think about that from the perspective of a construction contractor perusing a Home Depot. Large joists in construction projects need to come from somewhere. So they need large, straight trees to begin with. The longest ones are rare, so they go for a LOT. Most of your log cuts will likely be 'average' length and you won't see much variation in price for that range, but you get the really good ones that get freakishly long, and you may start seeing the value jump dramatically.

In FS17, if you could get an absurdly long log loaded and hauled to the sawmill, you could get some serious pricing per unit. My memory is shoddy, but I recall logs around 12 grand from my logging ops, with more average logs being in the 5 to 7 grand range. A trailer load of these usually net me around 98 to 120 k.

fs19 i get 40 to 50k for a load of logs

It does matter where you sell it and when the prices are high

[Usedfireball]

I think wood chips in FS 19 are pretty low value, to the point that any tree that can be turned into a log is better off as such. However when dealing with the tops it might be easier to make them into chips, but you won't be making a lot of money on wood chips.

[MrLiability]

I'm not sure why they bothered to allow woodchipping. The equipment is expensive, manually tossing hand-cut logs into a chipper is tedious work and the vanilla physics regarding logs and log collection are truly terrible. Even planting out poplars and running them over with a forager is really not very cost-effective compared to putting in a crop.

It would be different if there was some sort of extra mechanic in play.... multiple drop-offs for woodchips or some other reason to have them, like turning them into pulp or even paper and selling that on. Or if the amount of chips from logs and poplars was quadrupled, then it *might* become cost effective. At the moment, actual logs are worth a lot more (though they are hard to handle without mods) and crops are much better value than woodchips.

TLDR; woodchips suck