I was picking up some wood today at the local lumberyard. The woman processing my order was on the phone explaining to another customer that Alder was very hard to come by these days.
I asked her about it when she hung up, and she explained that Alder just seems to be increasing in popularity, with lots of folks substituting it for cherry. They are having a hard time finding reliable sources for the wood.
I built a few things from Alder over the years, I really enjoyed working with it. At the time, I wondered why it was priced closer to soft maple and poplar and not closer to cherry. I guess it's not priced that way anymore.
Rich S.