Straw season gets off to early start

Got your pine straw yet?

• Photos

Jim Blaylock/Staff

Carlos Acosta loads pine straw to be taken to a home rented out for Master Week. Straw season peaks later in other parts of the South, but in Augusta it begins earlier because of the Masters Tournament.

In most Southern towns, the rush for the popular spring commodity is still a week away.

But in Augusta, where sprucing up for Masters Week is tradition, the scramble is on.

"We've been going through 300 to 400 bales a day," said Guy DeVore, owner of Ground Cover Supply in Evans.

Raked annually from forests across Georgia and South Carolina, longleaf straw is considered the best---and demands the highest prices.

"Usually it's around $3.50 a bale," Mr. DeVore said. "The really nice, red longneedle might be as much as $5."

The rush for pine straw in Augusta starts in mid-March and peaks the week before the famous annual golf tournament.

"In other cities like Savannah and Atlanta, and Jacksonville, the rush is a little later," he said. "Here, everybody wants to be spruced up early."

Much of the straw sold in the Augusta area comes from south Georgia. "Some of it's harvested in Louisville, Vidalia, places like that," Mr. DeVore said.

Farmers often count on pine straw sales as part of their annual income and will lease straw-raking rights to companies that harvest, bale and market the straw.

At Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where the U.S. Forest Service manages large tracts of planted pine, more than 300 acres of pine straw is harvested each year through a competitive bidding program.

Georgia's pine straw industry is valued at about $25 million a year, according to the National Forestry Association.

Reach Rob Pavey at 868-1222, ext. 119 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle