Financial Overview

At the retail level, according to an informal survey, black walnut generally sells for about two to three times the price of oak and maple.

At the wholesale level, it's not unusual for large black walnut trees that are relatively free of defects to fetch $20,000 to $35,000 per tree. In 1985, a single black walnut log sold for $90,000. However, very few trees like these remain, and as more are harvested, the few remaining will all but disappear.

Dwindling supplies and growing demand have caused the prices of prime veneer-grade black walnut to climb 1400 percent in 35 years (including inflation). At the same time the overall quality has declined, and, in fact, veneer-slicing in today's mills is mostly a salvage operation. As a consequence, the prices for veneer-grade walnut range from about $3.00 a board foot on up to about $15.00 for the very best specimens, with most purchases falling in the $3.00 to $5.00 range.

Each year thousands of run-of-the-nursery black walnut seedlings are planted in hopes of reaping great profits down the road. However, on the average, it will take from 50 to 70 years for these trees to reach harvestable size, and even then, only about one in ten will be veneer-grade. Conversely, there is little doubt that plantations of the Successor GST black walnut cultivars are the best way to meet future demand for veneer-grade black walnut.

According to one buyer, the genetically superior trees, which should fall in the $6.00 to $8.00 per board foot range, should be worth between about $5,000 and $10,000 in 30 to 35 years. However, it is possible, under optimal conditions, that some of the trees could be ready for harvest in about 25 years.

Table 1 illustrates the tremendous profit potential in growing the Successor GST genetically superior black walnut trees.

NOTE - You are welcome to download {in either STUFFIT format for Macintosh (78 K) or ZipIt format for Windows/DOS (59 K) machines} and use the Microsoft Excel worksheet I created to generate the data in Table 1.