Redwood management

f)nclnlc Lumber's wise resource f management is one of the Principal reasons the companY has become such a flexible manufacturer and the supplier of such a wide range of redwood products.

Since 1869 they have been producing redwood products from old growth redwood stands. And they intend to do so for many more years.

Timberlands now contain young growth redwood and fir in considerable volume, and much is reaching merchantable size, principally in the 60-80 year old class. Logs from these stands, logs from thinning of young growth and smaller logs from old growth stands are now being converted into lumber in their small log sawmill at Fortuna. Ca. ln 1972 Pacific opened its Fortuna sawmill and introduced a whole new facet of redwood marketing for the company, one of the largest single private resource owners in the redwood industry. Palco has long been known for its superior quality redwood finish and siding items and, more recently, for its top quality sawtextured redwood and fir plywood sidings.

The Fortuna operation has brought a wider range of the garden grades into the marketplace bearing the Palco brand name.

Outside observers had wondered about the building of a new sawmill in an industry with limited timber growing acres available, an industry that faces additional environmentalist pressures from extremist preservationist groups who would lock up all of the redwood forests for single purpose wilderness and eliminate all forest management and balanced harvesting practices.

The company owns vast areas of timberland which. under its sustained yield forest management, will continue to supply the fine grained old growth for decades while at the same time producing release growth and healthy, vigorous young growth which is ready for harvesting now and will continue to be in the decades ahead.

The Fortuna operation is built to handle logs that are no larger than 43" in diameter. Certainly that represents a log size substantially greater than the log size of second growth forests in most other species and indicates the obvious fact that redwood is an extremely fast growing species. Its redwood forests grow tremendous volumes of wood fiber under the proper growing conditions maintained by company foresters.

Story at a Glance

A producer of redwood Products since 1869, Palco continues to stress resource management as a prime way of assuring a continuing flow of products to market.

In order to most effectively utilize its Scotia sawmill operations where the big old growth logs are coming in, Palco found the need to build a sawmill specifically geared to the smaller release growth and young growth timber which is becoming vital to its total oroduct mix. -

The young growth and release growth timber produce excellent grades for garden and outdoor living applications. Their construction heart and construction common are highly suited to the deck and fence market so important throughout the United States.

The Fortuna mill makes basically 2x4 through 2xl2 and 4x4 and 4x6 construction heart & better and construction common & better. They also make rough timbers on special order.

Stock is unitized for truck. box car or flat car shipment. They add the advantage of shipping these common grades for outdoor living out of Fortuna and toploading the fine quality clear grades from Scotia so important for siding and finish applications.

Thus, with its resource management, plus flexible redwood Production, the firm is geared to serving all markets.