Anyone planting longleaf is gonna have been dead a long time before those woodpeckers start using them. Both pines provide a place for turkeys to roost, but it doesn't take a lot of them to provide that service. Squirrels feed on the cones of both, but you are right, neither tree in itself does much for wildlife.

It's the frequent burning that separates the longleaf ecosystem from a loblolly plantation. You could come close to providing the same wildlife habitat by just burning your land every couple years and have no trees at all on it, but then you get zero income ever. I prefer to try to restore the land to the native species and eventually have some economic gain as well.

But to each his own. Loblolly farming on short rotation will provide most income on many sites. We did not kill a turkey on my place for a 7 year period while loblolly plantation was young. That doesn't have to happen with longleaf.