Trash to cash
By James D. Ritchie

Red cedar trees go from scourge of poor ground to a marketable crop.

To most landowners, eastern red cedar may be about as welcome as multiflora rose or Canadian thistle. But the bird-borne, aromatic evergreen has merchantable qualities, too, and more and more property owners are turning this trash tree into cash.

In fact, the U.S. red cedar market generates nearly $60 million in annual gross sales. And it’s growing. Michael Gold, associate director of the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry, attributes the industry’s growth to the ever-increasing list of uses for cedar.

“From mailbox posts, animal bedding and mulch to novelty gifts and paneling, the list keeps growing,” Gold said. “Many high-value products can be produced from small-diameter stock, and cedar’s natural resistance to rot and insects makes it an attractive substitute for pressure-treated lumber products.”

In terms of raw material, Missouri and Arkansas (along with Kentucky and Tennessee) are the top red cedar-producing states nationally.

“We buy logs within a 50-mile radius of here,” said John Blair of Blair Cedar and Novelty Works, Camdenton, Mo. “We need a 44-inch log at least 18 inches in diameter. Most of the loggers we buy from sort of specialize in cedar.”

Blair Cedar turns about 750,000 board feet of logs into an amazing variety of gift and novelty items each year. When logs arrive at the mill, they are sawed into cants (squared-off logs) and further sawed into boards of varying thickness.

“We kiln-dry the boards, then plane them to the desired thickness,” said Blair, noting that drying kilns are heated by sawdust-fired boilers.

“From there, the wood becomes boxes of different sizes, candlesticks, salt-and-pepper shakers—whatever we are manufacturing at the time.”

The company was founded 65 years ago by Blair’s grandfather, who crafted cedar furniture and other items for a restaurant the family ran. Other people in the Lake of the Ozarks area soon asked Blair to make similar items for them, and the sideline business grew into a major industry. Today, Blair Cedar ships its “Cedaroma” items to all of the U.S. states and several foreign countries and employs 70 people, making the company the second or third largest employer in Camdenton.

“We have five salesmen who travel all over the United States,” said John Blair. “Over the years, our product line has changed and evolved. Tourist souvenir items have been a major part of our production and still are. But in recent years, the tourism business has taken a hit and that has forced us to develop new products.”

Cedar boxes of all sizes make up a big part of the product line nowadays, from tiny boxes designed to hold the ashes of a cremated pet to larger ones containing Bibles for gifts and memorials.

“We are pretty specialized in the products we make,” said Blair. “We’ve developed many of the techniques we use in sawing, shaping, sanding and spraying. We put a lot of research into developing the special lacquer we use to spray cedar wood.”

As mentioned, the aromatic oils in cedar impart a certain amount of insect resistance, and the chemical properties of eastern red cedar provide rot resistance. The Midwest Research Institute is studying ways to extract these properties to provide rot resistance to other types of wood. Aromatic cedar oils already are used in the fragrance and cosmetics industries.

“Cedar is a natural repellent to insects and contains an oil that helps condition animal hair,” said Janice Klenke, co-owner and manager of Smithton Industries, at Smithton, Mo. “That’s a big part of its popularity for animal bedding.”

Smithton Industries makes shavings from about 1,000 cords of red cedar per year. The company also produces softwood shavings. Most of the shavings of both kinds go for animal bedding or plant mulch. Smithton Industries buys 4-foot cedar logs by the cord (128 cubic feet of wood) and pays $50 to $80 per cord.

“The price fluctuates with demand,” said Klenke. “Right now [mid-June], we’re paying $75 per cord. Most of the cedar we buy comes from Pettis and surrounding counties, although we do buy from other areas as well.

“Our main market is for livestock and pet bedding,” she added. “We sell to distributors who service feed, farm supply and pet supply outlets. We sell shavings to the Missouri State Fair, Ozark Empire Fair, Kansas State Fair and Oklahoma State Fair. Colored softwood shavings often go to livestock show rings and horse show arenas.”

A smaller volume of shavings sells to nurseries and landscaping firms, to be used as plant mulch. And, Smithton Industries has a small but growing export market. For example, they sell cedar shavings to a firm in China, which bundles the shavings into small, sachet-type packets that people put in their boots and shoes—whether to quell foot odor or just to make their footwear smell like cedar.

Neither Blair nor Klenke have noticed any shortage in the supply of red cedar raw material, although they both sometimes have trouble getting the size logs they prefer. Studies show that growth and yield of eastern red cedar are affected by site quality and hardwood competition. In ideal situations, red cedar can grow to 100 feet tall and four feet in diameter.

There may be profit potential for growing red cedar in managed stands; few cedar plantations exist. It’s certainly more profitable to add some value to the product. For example, raw red cedar logs typically sell for $250 to $300 per thousand board foot (mbf). Simply sawing the logs into cants (squared logs) can double the value.