You might want to discuss this with Neal Peterson, Mahatma Pawpaw. He’s very generous with advice and knows coal country.
Neal usually monitors posts on Pawpaw Fanatics Facebook page.
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A factor to consider is how far from your home the land is. I have land 13 miles from our home, and that is plenty far. The gas and driving time add up. Gasoline prices may go much higher, so factor that in as an expense of owning the property. Mining rights could be a sticky issue , too. However, room to spread out is great. It’s hard to know when to quit, though, as many of us addicts know. Don’t let it become a ball and chain, either.
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That is a very good point. I am looking at 35-40 miles away from current home base. That base may change in the next few years regardless of my job situation (my wife may be changing careers) so we have lots of moving parts. I’m currently driving on sunpower so gas prices aren’t as important, it’s more a time cost as about 50 minutes one way. It’s not a bad drive though, and I’m used to one hour commutes.
I’ve been looking for less expensive land closer to home and it doesn’t really exist from my experience. I do realize that sometimes you get what you pay for though… There is a local farm/orchard going out of business because the next generation does not want to take over. I have yet to reach out to them. Maybe I’ll check there first out of curiosity.
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Growing fruit in Kansas is hard but all it takes with any location is effort and experience. The way I grow fruit could likely transfer to any climate. There was a big learning curve for me to grow fruit using modern methods. What I do now is grow things using modern and ancient techniques.
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We bought a property last year that is 50 minutes away as well. I talked myself into it being reasonable, we’ll see what happens this spring. I’m starting to feel the pressure. I have 25 grape vines, 18 paw paw seedlings, 35 stone fruit rootstocks, and 10 trees coming in the mail this spring, plus over 40 of my own bench grafted trees in root pouches in my garage. Some of our local counties SWCD tree sale info is starting to pop up online. I could easily add dozens and dozens of really cheap paw paw, american persimmon and prunus americana rootstocks to be grafted later. Good luck with your endeavor. I say go for it. If the price isn’t a burden, I can’t imagine you’ll regret having all that land even if just for recreational purposes.
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Thanks for the encouragement. I view it at the very least as a long term investment strategy. There is also a program in Pennsylvania that I could apply for to greatly reduce taxes by keeping the area naturalized with minimal development. Lots of things to consider. Good luck with your new plot! Stay the course and make a to do list so you don’t get paralyzed by the amount of work you have to do. Be realistic with your expectations of how much you can accomplish in a trip.
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I wanted to revisit the Flood Plain map issue, because it’s important and there are a lot of misconceptions about how they work. First of all, it’s not really a binary in or out of flood danger. It’s really more a map of how likely you are to experience a flood in any given year. They show what are commonly referred to as the 100 and 500 year flood areas. Those names are a bit misleading, as it’s easy to think it will only flood once every 100 or 500 years. What it’s actually saying is that in any given year, there is a 1% chance or 0.2% chance of a flood. To better understand this, here’s a quote from the FEMA website;
Flood maps show how likely it is for an area to flood. Any place with a 1% chance or higher chance of experiencing a flood each year is considered to have a high risk. Those areas have at least a one-in-four chance of flooding during a 30-year mortgage.
They also show the floodway, where the water is expected to be moving rapidly during a flood event. There are regulations against building in the floodway, as anything there could be swept away and become a major hazard to anything downstream. Everything outside the floodway is mostly expected to get wet or submerged, rather than carried off.
The other things to understand is that these are based on the best available information and models at the time of publication. So, it’s never perfect and you don’t want to take the line as gospel as to where you’ll be safe. It does matter for insurance purposes, because you have to make a distinction somewhere. Also, between climate patterns changing to more frequent heavier rainfall and increased urban/suburban/rural sprawl, flood risks are changing rapidly. Fortunately, they are working on updating these maps. There’s a national update that’s either ready now or will be soon.
There are a lot of ingredients that go into this, but at a basic level, they’re trying to figure out what elevation the water surface will get to, and they compare that to the local elevation. If a property you’re considering is near or touches a flood risk zone, you can look at an elevation map to help you assess how comfortable you are with that. If your elevation is only a couple feet higher than where the flood zone is, I might be worried. If it’s 20 feet or more, you’re probably safe. It does depend on a lot of factors, as a big river might only come up a few feet in a massive flood, but a small flashy creek could come up almost 20 ft if the watershed is big enough.
Another thing to note is that since FEMA knows it’s not perfect, there is a process where if you think they didn’t get it quite right in your area, you can hire a surveyor and/or engineer to assess whether your house is above the flood elevation and petition to update the map. This would save you a bunch on insurance.
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I’m generally a pretty big advocate of land ownership.
For my part the bigger issues are liability from pollution, but it seems like you have a good handle on that one.
A bigger issue is that the owner may retain ownership of mineral rights. That would be the deal breaker for me. I have friends and relatives from OK. Mineral rights are a pretty big deal. They routinely separate mineral rights from land. But it can become a nightmare for the land owner. I wouldn’t do it. You essentially surrender control of the property you think you own.
In terms of Pawpaws. I think they are fine for a hobby. Imo, they will never be a successful commercial enterprise of any significance. You may find you tire of them as time wears on. I know some veteran forum members who were extremely enthusiastic about pawpaws, only to find after time their taste buds tired of them. For me, about one or two pawpaws per year is enough.
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This is why I would tend to disqualify anything for purchase that is at all close to a flood zone. Except maybe (as you note further) the flood zone is only 3 houses away, but 20+ feet lower.
Of course, I’m buying houses to rent, with the fruit planting being secondary (at least from a financial standpoint). And I suspect that a flood can do a lot more monetary damage to a residence than to an orchard (at least at the house prices in my area).
Speaking of rentals, I’m hoping to close on one next week. The land is only a bit over 0.17 acres, but I should be able to fit over a dozen trees in, without making things too crowded (I’ve been using 10-12’ spacing, and generally only putting them on the outside edges).
X= Jujube
P= Persimmon
F=Fig (on South side of house, though I may change my mind and put a few more figs in place of P).
Pl= Plum (I grafted Middleburg to a potted sucker and have been looking for a good place to plant it and the NW corner looks like a decent spot)
I generally avoid putting trees in high-traffic parts of the yard. For example, anything between the driveway and the entrance is iffy and to be avoided.
I wouldn’t just be worried about it from a liability standpoint. It seems like a bit of a personal risk as well. And as Olpea notes, the mineral right and the potential impact that could have would be a deal-killer.
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Thank you for the input.
Regarding the mineral rights - I am not as concerned about this as in the long run, if the land were re-mined it would actually drastically increase the value of my investment by removing potential liabilities from the land.
I talked to my co-worker today and discovered on one of the properties that there is actually a plan to remove the spoil pile within the next 5 years. This is the one I am more seriously interested in, knowing there will be less liability in the future. Plus, I would easily be able to start operations for growing on a large portion of the property while the spoil is cleaned as it is probably “only” a 10-15 acre area.
As I said initially, I intend to create an LLC to limit exposure to risk for this scenario. Also I’ll reiterate, Pennsylvania has some unique laws regarding treatment of abandoned mine water and various other things that other states do not have protections for. There has been a push for years to make similar legislation available nationwide, mainly for coal mines in the east and hard rock mines out west (which have drastically worse water).
I am looking at it from the perspective that I legitimately couldn’t find a 4 acre lot for the price I’d pay for over 100. For that amount of land for that price I would be willing to take a certain amount of risk. I know that I would not be liable for paying for anything mining related as it is pre-SMCRA (no environmental laws) and the state assumes the burden of cleaning up any issues because of that. Not that I wouldn’t WANT to make it better, and I likely would, but I wouldn’t be obligated to do so.
I am hoping to breed for qualities that make them more marketable, and if that fails, just a better version of a tree that is low maintenance and can be in every backyard similar to how persimmons exist in other parts of the world.
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Totally. I don’t want to discourage. Pawpaws, Snozzberries, etc. Land ownership is generally a great deal. That’s what you need to centralize on - land ownership. If you can afford it, it can be a great deal.
I wouldn’t worry if it was 50 miles away (as long as it’s a hobby and only requires non-daily visits.
My concern is the mineral rights. I understand you aren’t aggressively seeking them, but for my part, if the land was a good deal, I’d offer more to the seller in order to transfer the mineral rights to you.
I get that many times the owner of mineral rights and the owner of the property work together, but understand it doesn’t always work that way. Also know the resell value will reflect the surrender of the mineral rights.
If you have to, offer more for the property to retain the mineral rights. That’s my advice.
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Good Links
I didn’t see in a search so
Might want to look at City data as well A number of things like % of jobs, taxes , crime health of people (like Diabetes )
Not certain I have more links
but another site also lists cancer rates , but not seeing the site
One was A real estate company (like HUB or Zillow listed cancer rates )
or one of the links I had saved at least did)
Do you know one that does I did search online already, but may be able to find on my email info saved to myself unless they changed it being listed as I swear it used to be listed on zillow?
(for Withita Kansas )
http://www.city-data.com/city/Wichita-Kansas.html
HERE is one not to bad but in IL. 97 acre 370,000
I think one of the cheapest I saw was a 1000 a acre
on one of these or $300,000 for 300 acres of farm land
(good area by college (carbondale in IL.)
(No telling if it had a Lien/loans to be paid off or something on it though )
https://www.landandfarm.com/property/Amazing_97_acres-15540107/
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