I am in the process of purchasing 29 acres with a large portion of it in loblolly pines. I am curious to know about bailing the pine straw. I know loblolly is considered "trash" straw and its a much shorter straw than slash or long leaf. I have googled it with limited results. I have found that some people bale it by hand but can not find the building plans for the manual baler and I have not had any luck in finding someone local to bail for me due to it being loblolly. Any suggestions? Should I just not worry with it? I thought if I sold it cheap enough someone would buy it. I don't think nurserys would be interested due to it being substandard straw. But I just hate it sitting there! Looking for ways to get property paid for and what better way than to let it pay for itself.

I think you are going to get your feelings hurt by what it's worth. Probably not worth the effort. I wouldn't mess with it if it were mine

We used to have someone collect ours in tn. Ain't sure they ever had permission but they sure wiped the ground clean.

My realistic expectation was only a $1 or $1.50 per bale. I know that it's not preferred so I didn't think it would be worth much. BUT I would just like some confirmation from people that know more than I do.

It's gonna cost you more than that to bale it if your time is worth anything at all. I've seen people rake it up on tarps, drag it out of the woods, and put it in a square baler. Unless you're gonna hire some help and already own a square baler and can get free fuel, it's gonna cost too much to bale to sell for that. I've seen folks build a box to put it in then tie hay strings around it but I wouldn't give 50 cents for a bale like that.

Fill a truck bed up drive around neighborhoods on saturday. When u see someone working in the yard say "want me to put this pine straw in your flower bed"? $75 a truck load

I think I paid $4.75 a bale last year.

One of my buddies paid $115 for a trailer load of pine straw this past fall,it sales for $3 a bale at the local stores and I've also seen people sale it for $3/bag for the big trash bags full,people will buy it around here in a skinny minute,I've got 2 acres of it here at the house and I guarantee I could sale it within a day or two

If I could find the plans to the manual baler I'd build one then hire a bunch of Mexicans to bale it. BUT it would be a lot easier to find someone that will bail it for me. Doing my research I found that the owner of pines gets up to .30 cents a bale if someone bales it for you but I'm sure that's the preferred slash or long leaf. But I'd be ok with that

Loblolly isn't worth a crap to landscapers or most home owners. Most straw will run 3-4.75 a bale for slash or long leaf. I wouldn't give you $2 a bale for loblolly and we use around 15,000 bales a year at my company.

I'm very familiar with pine straw business. I've leased thousands of acres of straw. Zero of those acres were loblolly. There is no commercial demand for loblolly but I'm sure some gets mixed in and sold every year. Someone would buy it from you for $2-3 baled. I'd consider selling it by the truck load but if you insist a hand baler is not hard to build. You can build it out of 2x4s.

You can assume 75 -125 bales per acre, maybe more the first year.


Be careful hiring just anyone to rake straw. It is considered an agricultural work and protected by the DoL and MSPA. Neither is one you want to get crossways with.


The easiest way to rid your pine straw problem is a match.

That settles it then. It will sit and I will not worry with it.

Don't forget about lost soil nutrients from raking pine straw. If you can't make any money doing it, you are doing more harm than good. If you don't like the look of the pine straw you might want to burn every 2-3 years.

I've always thought that lob straw will rot in flower beds quicker than slash or longleaf.
I read an article a couple of years ago about some process that was being tested where they mixed lob straw with some kind of resin making a material similar to OSB.