Teak and Timber Plantations: Realistic Return Expectations

Understand the biology before the spreadsheet

Teak is a long-cycle crop. Commercially useful girth on good soil with irrigation takes well over a decade, and quality — straightness, knot-free length, heartwood share — determines price as much as volume does.

Variables that decide your outcome

• Soil and drainage. Teak hates waterlogging; deep, well-drained soil outperforms.
• Water. Drip irrigation in the establishment years changes growth rates materially.
• Spacing and thinning. Correct thinning at the right years produces fewer, better trees — and interim income.
• Protection. Fencing, fire lines and pest management over a decade-plus horizon.
• Market and regulation. Timber harvest and transit are regulated; confirm the process in your district before you plant.

How to read a projection critically

Any projection multiplying an optimistic per-tree price by full survival across every year should be discounted. Ask instead: what survival rate is assumed, what thinning schedule, what price per cubic foot, and at what year.

Where the real return usually sits

Land appreciation plus modest timber realisation. Treat the plantation as an income supplement that improves the land, not as the reason to buy.

Costs to budget annually

Maintenance contract, irrigation energy, replanting failures, protection and security. These continue in years with no revenue.

Our approach

UrbanEarth farmland projects publish the species, spacing, count, irrigation method and the maintenance agreement — so you can judge the projection yourself instead of trusting a headline number.