How to calculate returns

You make a profit by selling your Robinia poles, biomass and plot. The optimum time for this is after 10 years. In our calculation we have already taken into account the costs of maintenance, harvesting and processing costs.

When first planted, your Robinia trees are approximately 0.5 cm thick and 60 cm high. Your Robinia trees grow roughly one cm in width and one metre in length per year. As you see, it's a very fast growing tree, three times as fast as a European Oak.

After 10 years per hectare
The height of your Robinia trees reaches its maximum at 10 to 15 metres. From that point on, they only grow in width. After 10 years, your trees will be around 10 to 15 metres high and 10 to 12 cm in width. Due to natural fall out, we estimate that from your original 6,000 trees, 1,000 trees can not be harvested after the 10th year. In all the calculations we are working with 5,000 good trees after 10 years.

Regrettably, you cannot use your entire tree for making poles. We estimate that only the lower four metres are suitable for making poles. When you estimate the yearly price increase of 6%, you get the following return on your investment for one hectare with 5,000 trees:

Total Investment = € 20,000 (Purchase Price) + € 8,000 (Total Care and Maintenance)
1 tree = 2 poles of 2 metres

10,000 poles (two metres in height) x € 9.31 (price per pole) = € 93,100

Certification: + 15% (optional)
Harvesting costs -5%
Processing trees into poles: -15%

Total: € 85,674