Originally Posted by Turkey_neck
Originally Posted by C3SEAST
Plant long leafs at about 700 per acre if you have the appropriate site index. You’ll have great deer hunting the first 10 years or so. After that you’ll have a beautifully raked, weed (and wildlife food and cover) free monoculture that will generate $3-400 per year in pine straw production. You can burn all you want until baling begins and don’t have to worry about thinning until they’re 23-25 years old. Pine beetles are less of a problem and you can generate 3-5k per acre in income between years 12-25. It’s a no brainer compared to loblolly if income is your priority, not so much for wildlife during the productive baling years.
I’m in the 12-25 gap right now and about to start thinning with my chain saw. My holding capacity is crap now. Wish I had planted about 450 trees per acre.

Baling not feasible imo unless you in right location to sell it. Seems like read longleaf will take a hotter burn than most other trees and still survive. The only thing is they take so long to grow to make sawtimber.