Planting Firewood

[DaveBP]

In view of the spread of the emerald ash borer east across the country, at 100% mortality and now almost to western NY , ash might not be the best bet on a long term investment in time and money.

 

[captainjim04]

When my wife and I were looking for a home a number of years ago one of the places we looked at had black locust that they logged off every 8 years according to the owner. He said they cut down the trees at about 8-10" in diameter and in 8 decent years they were usually ready to cut again. He said he sold them for fence posts to some firm and were planted about 12-20' apart so they grew tall and straight.

I know that black locust is a reasonably fast growing tree, but I doubt that you will get decent firewood in 8 years. We have some black locust here. We have lived here 7 years now and only a couple of the trees are 8-10" and they were decent sized 7 years ago.

I just went out and looked at a round laying outside. Looks like the growth rings are under 1/8" so an 8" tree would take at least 32 years. YMMV, maybe you have a better locust growing environment.

Ken

I have 2 acres of black locust forest at my house plus some giant white pines too. I find that the trees that have been left untouched did take long to grow, but when topped they tend to regrow much quicker then the first growth because the root system is larger then what the tree needs. I find the 8 year plan is vey true with mature root systems. 32 years would be true on the first growth. The thing is the regrow braches are not as heavy and dense as the first growth because of the radical growth splirts, but still burns better then most hardwoods I ever burned. As for the large white pines, the locusts that grow under these pines regrow straight long single trunk leads because they are racing for the sky for light. the trees topped not under the pines sprout out with sometomes 20 to 30 shoots and they go everywhere, full of thorns and look more like a briar patch then trees. I even tried pruning back the multiple leads and this helps some. But in my opinion I would take just 1 black locust in trade for 10 poplars to burn. The black locust gives me all night burns in my f3 with crazy burn times with nice temps that increase as the night goes on and the wood coals up great. I would have to wake up every hour to feed the f3 with my poplar. I only use my poplar for starter wood and relights. This is also because the jotul f3 does not have a giant burn box so I must be selective with the wood I burn going for long burn times. Before I got a splitter poplar was my favorite wood and also was great for my old fireplace.
I would mix it up so you get the best of both worlds... It's like your very own firewood garden. When I first moved in my house I was going to cut all the pines down to let more locust grow. I am really glad they are there now because they seem to help my other trees grow straight and high. Also you can plant locust very close together because they grow with little braches like this if you spread them out more they will branch out more and give less energy to the hight and girth. I hope this helps...Good luck!

here is some regrowth on a locust I cut 5 years ago. see how much larger the rings are. This is due to the rapid growth with the larger root system, but burns great and kept my home warm many nights this winter.

 

[captainjim04]

I will look for some pics for you

 

[captainjim04]

One more thing with regrowth cuts, Cut your trees down to the trunk about 5 inches above the roots and after the first shoot comes out, cover the stump with soil and mulch the new sprout with some dirt and leaves. this will prevent more leads coming out from the stump and will decay the existing stump that is dead and just keep the live part of the root system to grow.

here is a red maple I cut last year. It has a load of shoots. If I was going to regrow this tree I would take this down to one or two shoots. If I did that last year, the lead would be about 10 ' tall or more this year. the leads here are 6' tall now. I just took this pic. This tree is right outside my house (that is why I am not going to let it regrow) But I will get you some pics of a regrow in my woods of a locust.