From Steve Nix,
Your Guide to Forestry.
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SN: Big numbers if true. How much of that would stay with the timber owner?

Don McClain: Well, if you owned the forest, you’d have several options. You could lease out the baling rights by contract, do nothing, and make from $50.00 to maybe $75.00 per acre per year. Or if you wanted to be more involved you could rent for more, maybe $100.00 to $150.00 per acre and agree to keep the stand clear of major limbs, etc. and spray herbicide as needed. Or you could do the whole process yourself and make the big bucks. Value depends on the condition, age, and yield of the stand.

SN: That's a long way from $1000 per acre. Looks like the guy baling the straw has the better deal.

Don McClain: Not necessarily. Let me outline the process:
First, you must locate a stand that is relatively level and dry. At about 6 years old you do a controlled burn. Year 7 you apply herbicide as needed. Year 8 you do a heavy pruning and clearing (cut our briars, hardwoods, etc.) which should be the only heavy clearing required for the life of the stand if it’s managed properly.
This, I think, is pretty much a recommended process for the tree grower anyway. If you have briar or weed re-growth, you may need to spray again, but by year 8 the trees should canopy over to prevent much re-growth. Then the straw has to be cleaned of limbs and pine cones and raked into small windrows, like hay. This process has to be repeated prior to each baling, whether every year or every 2 years.

SN: I thought there was a catch. It’s starting to sound like work!

Don McClain: That’s only the beginning. The process now is to rake the straw, remove it from the forest by hauling it in a pickup or wagon, then either hand bale it in a box type baler and hand tying the strings.
Or you can fork the straw into a stationary, conventional square hay baler. Some stands are planted on 8’ or 10’ rows, and square balers can be used there. The manual process yields 250-300 bales per day and the mechanical process yields as many as 1000 bales per day. We discovered that our Mini Roll Baler fits well, even in 6’ center rows. North Carolina extension agents advised us that our baler could save the pine straw operator perhaps 50% of his labor costs.

SN: Can’t you use a hay rake to rake the straw?

Don McClain: Not at this time. We’re bringing in a small hay rake to test this summer. Most rakes are too big to take into the trees. Small finger wheel rakes have been tried, but if you have to slow down for a stump or wild tree, it stops raking, and they (rakes) don’t like that.

SN: Do people like the round bales?

Don McClain: They’re not for everyone. For Grandma’s 2 or 3 rose bushes they may not be economically feasible. However, large homeowner landscapes and landscapers who have tested the bales liked them and wanted more. And you bring up another facet of the baling operation: marketing.
After baling the straw, or more aptly before baling, the operator should have the bales sold, preferably by long term contract. It would be ideal to deliver directly from the baling process, thus eliminating any storage and additional handling, but that’s not always possible.
Also the operator has to invest in (used) 20’, 40’, 48’, or 53’ closed trailers so he can deliver to the garden center, etc., where he has sold the straw, then when the client reorders he takes another full trailer and picks up the empty one. That’s where a long term deal is beneficial. He also would need a road tractor and driver, or hire the process out.