What should I charge to lease out 4 acres of pecan trees for picking?

Question

I have 4 acres of pecan trees, it used to be an orchard, and my trees are already getting loaded down with nuts. I would like someone to come in and pick them, but I don't know how much I should charge to lease out the acreage for this? Any ideas? My land is in East Texas, around Tyler, TX. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I would take what you normally make off of a crop from your orchard and then minus the cost of having it picked and keeping the trees (fertilizer, watering, pest control, etc.) this would give you the profit that can be made then charge a portion of this for the rent of the orchard.  If your rent is too high no one will do it because of the lack of profit and if it is too low then you will loose money on what it takes for you to keep the trees.  So if you make $4,000.00 on the crop but you spend $500 in maintenance of the trees and $1500 on the picking machines there is a profit of $2000.00 so you may want to charge $500 for the rights to the crop.  (all numbers are just for example purposes only, I know nothing about what pecans are worth)