“Pine Cones” $100 a bucket

The MN DNR is paying $200 a bushel for Black Spruce cones (just over 9 gallons).

Makes me wanna take the Boys to our swamp on the land next weekend

Attachments:

1. 

   Screenshot_20250226-104007-1.png
   

Don’t tell the tweakers about that. That sounds like something that would be right up their alley

I have 5 Black Hill Spruce in my back yard, wonder if that’s the same?

I have 19 planted by my deer stand and they are loaded with cones.

bigcrappie wrote:

I have 5 Black Hill Spruce in my back yard, wonder if that’s the same?

They’ve been offering to pay for some of these for awhile now they must have like zero seed stock left.

Damn just looked it up not the same.

That will be a fun 1099 for taxes next year

fins wrote:

Don’t tell the tweakers about that. That sounds like something that would be right up their alley

Next weeks Star Trib headline “Thousands of Black Spruce cut down in National Forest to collect pine cones”

Riverrat wrote:

They’ve been offering to pay for some of these for awhile now they must have like zero seed stock left.

That is exactly what the picture he posted says. OUR SHELVES ARE BARE, WE ARE DOUBLING OUR PRICE PER BUSHELL

fins wrote:

Don’t tell the tweakers about that. That sounds like something that would be right up their alley

Munchy beat me to it now I see, but they will have a bunch of cut down trees I fear.

fins wrote:

Don’t tell the tweakers about that. That sounds like something that would be right up their alley

Until they realized how much work it is. Then they’d go right back to stealing Amazon packages.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>fins wrote:</div>
Don’t tell the tweakers about that. That sounds like something that would be right up their alley

Until they realized how much work it is. Then they’d go right back to stealing Amazon packages.

Or catalytic converters

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>fins wrote:</div>
Don’t tell the tweakers about that. That sounds like something that would be right up their alley

Until they realized how much work it is. Then they’d go right back to stealing Amazon packages.

Being they mainly produce cones in the top 1/3 of the tree, they’ll quickly figure out cutting them down is easiest.

Well there might be something to this….

Yesterday Hank came home early from school and was feeling like garbage. He spent the rest of the day and night pouring liquid out of both ends.

Today we kept him home to rest, and after a nap I was telling him about the black spruce cones.

The next thing I knew he was asking to go look for some because he hasn’t been out of the house for 24hrs

We hopped in the truck and drove to the nearest road accessible public land black spruce swamp that I could remember off the top of my head, which was 20 minutes away (I’m sure there’s some closer too)

As we got into the swamp I quickly realized why not everyone does it

Very, very, very few trees actually had any cones visible, and obviously they were out of reach.

We spent the next 2 hours searching for relatively fresh broken trees. They’re was trees down all over, but you could walk by a hundred downed trees before you find one with any substantial number cones.

When we found “the one” in a hundred, there was a 90% chance the cones were old and not viable (they crumble and the insides are dark from decay).

20 minutes into our search, after walking by thousands of black spruce trees, I began to think a bucket of cones should be worth $25,000.

We brought garbage bags for our plunder and hadn’t even filled a sweatshirt pocket so far.

Soon after, we stumbled into part of the swamp where a some trees just the right age had broken off to within reach. A handful of them were LOADED!!

We tried plucking them over a garbage bag, but soon decided it would be easier to cut the hanging tops off and carry them to the truck to do at home.

Hank was well past worn out and fell asleep on the drive back. Once home I dropped the tailgate and started picking. It didn’t take long to find out that aggressively rubbing the tops with a pair of gloves was the way to go. It took only a few minutes for each one.

For our effort we ended up with almost a bushel in 3 hours (counting drive time), which was way better than I thought it was going to be after we got started.

The majority of those came off just five loaded tops (which again, were extremely rare).

If we do it again, next time I’ll bring a tarp to work the cones off in the swamp and a canoe pack to haul them out. It will be way easier than dragging them out, and for sure save some from falling off on the way.

If what we picked is “actually” worth $100 a bucket, I think making $1,000 in a long day could be possible lol

If they offer $50 a bushel for what we picked today because some are too old or there’s too many twigs, then I’ll light them on fire in the parking lot and cook some hotdogs with the Boys

Attachments:

1. 

   Screenshot_20250226-143805.png
   

2. 

   Screenshot_20250226-143823.png
   

3. 

   Screenshot_20250226-143841.png
   

These look like the ones in northern Manitoba… they are THICK there ! Could make million$$$$ and get in some good fishing too !!

big_g wrote:

These look like the ones in northern Manitoba… they are THICK there ! Could make million$$$$ and get in some good fishing too !!

Black Spruce swamps are super common in the northern 1/3rd of the state too.

Pretty much every muskeg swamp that you see with needled trees is Black Spruce. They often have Tamaracks on the fringes (missing needles in winter). There’s also some Cedar swamps, but those are pretty rare in comparison.

B-man wrote:

If what we picked is “actually” worth $100 a bucket, I think making a $1,000 in a long day could possibly lol

If they offer $50 a bushel for what we picked today because some are too old or there’s too many twigs, then I’ll light them on fire in the parking lot and cook some hotdogs with the Boys

You might as well get the hot dogs ready.

Attachments:

1. blackSpruceConeCollection.pdf

^^^^ Well it was good to get Hank out of the house anyway, and now we can roast some weiners

I didn’t see a single purple looking cone, even on downed living trees.

Maybe a guy needs a chainsaw in August to get those lol

Be at the ready with the hotdogs… they burn REALLY FAST and HOT when dry !!!

Before you spend too much time on collecting pine cones I would suggest that you review on the MN DNR website on how to collect these and condition requirements for sale to the DNR.

OG Net_Man wrote:

Before you spend too much time on collecting pine cones I would suggest that you review on the MN DNR website on how to collect these and condition requirements for sale to the DNR.

Like the one blackbay posted. Good job bman kids are lucky you keep them entertained!

Like the one blackbay posted. Good job bman kids are lucky you keep them entertained!
[/quote]

I’m not sure if B is entertaining the boys or vice versa.