drawings of douglas fir trees

A Douglas Fir Tree Is One Of The Best Carbon Sequestration Trees On The Planet

One 50 year old Douglas fir tree sequesters 17 pounds of carbon each year and 5 acres of Douglas fir trees captures 127 tons a year offsetting the carbon footprint of over 1,000 people.

Douglas fir is also an important timber tree, valued for its strong, durable wood used primarily by the construction industry.

Top dollar is paid for knot-free Douglas fir sawlogs 30 inches or more in diameter. Knot-free clear wood is considered a top-grade timber wood. Clear of knots, fir wood triples its strength for structural posts and beams. For every knot present in a length of fir lumber, its strength drops by 5%. More than 5 knots and the lumber will be downgraded to construction grade, which is worth considerably less money.

Clear fir wood is becoming rare, particcularly plank and beam wood that is 24 inches wide or more. Trees that produce this prized wood have been mostly harvested from old growth forests that took a thousand years to grow are gone.

Replacing these forests would not only be important for carbon reduction but would grow valuable timber stock. Tree farmers can earn a 300 percent return growing Douglas fir trees based on an average transplanted price of $3 for each seedling, a growth cycle of 30 years and a harvest of at least two, 12-inch diameter 20-foot knot-free sawlogs from each tree.

Lonely Doug

Just to give you an idea of how big these trees can get, Big Lonely Doug on Vancouver Island, Canada, stands tall, rising from a clear-cut. A solitary specimen surrounded by stumps and logging debris, it soars 230 feet high with a trunk more than 20 feet in diameter. It is estimated to be between 900 and 1,500 years old. Big Lonely Doug is a sad but majestic symbol of the disappearing old-growth forests and the ongoing fight to save them.

Douglas fir grows up and down the West Coast of North America and is the dominant timber tree for softwood lumber. Of the old growth forests that remain after three centuries of commercial logging, only a few are accessible to the public and are protected by the Federal, State and Provincial governments of both countries.

The government of New Zealand adopted an aggressive reforestation program that introduced Californian Redwood and Canadian Douglas fir to the country in the 1980's. Today, New Zealand is second only to Canada for Douglas fir timber exports.

Douglas Fir Trees Grow Fast

Douglas fir trees grow fast, much faster than hardwoods and significantly faster than most softwoods except for California Sequoia and Redwood, Fast growth makes this tree extremely valuable for commercial plantations because timber investors can recoup their investment faster than they would from hardwood tree plantations.

Terrain, Timber & Management

Many commercial tree species require certain types of soil and terrain for optimum growth. Others grow best at a genetically determined altitude. And still others require an adequate amount of rainfall to flourish. The reverse is true with Douglas fir; probably the most adaptable softwood tree able to grow in a wide variety of environments. Douglas fir does as well on mountain slopes as it does in river valleys. It also grows well in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains where only a few inches of rain fall each summer. Douglas fir grows best however in low coastal areas that receive significant amounts of rainfall; some trees grow over 200 feet tall and 20 feet across like Old Doug on Vancouver Island.

Douglas Fir Wood

Douglas fir is regarded as superior structural lumber. Twice as strong as spruce and pine, fir wood is used for beams and floor joists in residential and commercial buildings. A laminated beam made from this tree equals the strength of a glulam, a type of manufactured beam used to span open spaces and support the bearing load of a floor, wall or roof structure. Douglas fir lumber generally dries without warping keeping walls and floors straight and true. Douglas fir wood can be used indoors or outdoors as a decorative finish. It covers well (paint or stain), is extremely durable and can last for years. The strength comes for its tight wood grain, not seen in other types of softwood.

Douglas Fir Wood Products

Douglas fir is used for exposed and non-exposed structural post and beams, glulam laminates, shake roof shingles, exterior finishes, interior trim and moldings, telephone poles, mid-priced furniture and railway ties.

Douglas Fir As A Landscape Tree - Living Art

Experimenting with trees can produce some incredible results. Topping a Douglas fir tree and pruning branches high up the trunk for example, will shape the tree much like an "Arizona Palm", which would create a "head-turning" feature for any landscape, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where palm trees simply don't grow.

Douglas Fir Tree Plantations

Douglas fir trees are singularly planted in a mono-cropped one-spiral plantation. This Crop Circle shaped plantation has several advantages over row-by-row plantations. One is, it conserves water, requiring just half of an irrigated plantation. Another is that it accelerates tree growth by as much as 20%.

Douglas Fir Partnership Opportunities

Hire us to build a turnkey Crop Circle Tree Plantation on our land or your land anywhere in the world. Our team will travel to your location and layout the Crop Circle Tree Plantation, marking the spots where trees are planted to make a perfect spiral, which is essential to promote fast tree growth. You can plant the trees yourself or hire us to do the planting for you.

Contact Us For Pricing

The best time to plant a douglas fir tree was 20 years ago.
The second best time is now!

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