Does firewood "season" in the round?

[Mastermind]

I hunt dead standing trees for firewood. Yeah....its usually still wet inside when we split it, but it seems to dry much faster than a living tree does.

 

[P.M.P.]

We can fell the dead here with a permit on the forestry (federal) land nothing living. I still let it dry for a couple of years. Most of the people up here think its all good if it's dead. Crazy how some can burn wood their whole life and still not have a clue on seasoning it.

 

[Mastermind]

We can fell the dead here with a permit on the forestry (federal) land nothing living. I still let it dry for a couple of years. Most of the people up here think its all good if it's dead. Crazy how some can burn wood their whole life and still not have a clue on seasoning it.

I've always heated with wood, but didn't really understand what a difference there was between sorta dry wood, and properly seasoned wood until I started doing sweat lodge ceremonies.

 

[CR888]

In Australia rot does get dead standing trees. It usually gets helped along by funky ants, grubs and bugs. I sometimes wonder how these tiny little grubs bore long holes through wood that I can't scratch or dent with my fingernail you can barely scratch it with a scribe. And these little puss filled grubs drill holes through it and live in there.

 

[ElevatorGuy]

Crazy how some can burn wood their whole life and still not have a clue on seasoning it.

This is my best friend to a T! 2 years ago another buddy of ours had a live hickory come down in a storm. We both got a trailer load in the summer of 2020. Both loads were split and stacked immediately. He burned his (or tried to) in February 2021 and complained how bad hickory sucks and he doesn’t know why people love it so much . I have not burned mine yet…

 

[Wilhelm]

I have had a truckload of turkey oak firewood logs sitting in my yard for two years, it got buried by a second truckload dropped on and around it so I couldn't get to it for processing.
As I finally got to bucking those longer sitting logs there was rot and fungi on the bark and outer ring on the logs on and close to the ground - but even those up high on the pile without any bark left on them were still dripping wet in their core.

Closed turkey oak rounds do not season well at all, no matter whether there is still bark on them or not.
For me firewood needs to be split to season reasonably good.

 

[Mastermind]

This is my best friend to a T! 2 years ago another buddy of ours had a live hickory come down in a storm. We both got a trailer load in the summer of 2020. Both loads were split and stacked immediately. He burned his (or tried to) in February 2021 and complained how bad hickory sucks and he doesn’t know why people love it so much . I have not burned mine yet…

Green hickory burns pretty well, but it needs to thrown in on a bed of hot coals. The old timers used it to hold a fire all night back before we had airtight wood stoves. Of course, there's no good reason to burn it green now.

 

[cuinrearview]

Fungi.

The Fifth Kingdom.

It's Fungi, not bacteria, that break down wood. If it were not for fungi we would be a few kilometres buried in wood world around.

Mycelium also helps the tree live. Crazy.

 

[Stihl036]

Mycelium also helps the tree live. Crazy.

A symbiotic relationship!

Fungi and plants that form symbiotic relations are said to have a 'mycorrhizal' relationship.

Humans can also benefit from fungi directly. I grow Lion's Mane but in the off season I take tablets.

For instance:

 

[Hinerman]

Crazy how some can burn wood their whole life and still not have a clue on seasoning it.

That is my dad...

 

[Woodpecker]

Breaking 8-12ft up is a weak point in the tree from a knot, strangulation from vines, or similar. As it dries out, it becomes brittle and the wind finishes the job. So maybe I don't understand what you're trying to point out?

This is false

 

[CrystalRiver1]

A symbiotic relationship!

Fungi and plants that form symbiotic relations are said to have a 'mycorrhizal' relationship.

Humans can also benefit from fungi directly. I grow Lion's Mane but in the off season I take tablets.

For instance:

View attachment 321772

Excellent observation.
I studied that symbiotic, mutualistic, and parasitic relationships in ye old Biology class...brings back, kinda fond memories!

 

[Wonkydonkey]

This is false

I wondered why it break 8-12 ft up, yeh but knots are all up a tree. I guess it comes down too forces. Ie big knot and wind at 90* to knot as well as leverage …

where’s my vid, I must have taken a screen shot of it. The tree was alive before it broke in some storm
Two slightly different angles

Not really trying to prove anything apart from weaknesses and wind. Not dead standing and stuffs


edit, it was a larch tree. In a woodland that stood up to the 1987 hurricane in sussex. This happened some time later.

 

[Woodpecker]

I wondered why it break 8-12 ft up, yeh but knots are all up a tree. I guess it comes down too forces. Ie big knot and wind at 90* to knot as well as leverage …

where’s my vid, I must have taken a screen shot of it. The tree was alive before it broke in some storm
Two slightly different angles

Not really trying to prove anything apart from weaknesses and wind. Not dead standing and stuffs
View attachment 321852 View attachment 321853

If we’re talking standing dead it’s most likely that the lignin has been removed by fungal action. This causes the wood to become weak. Sure a big knot or physical defect can be a weak spot, but more often than “knot” we have fungal decay to blame.

the question posed by the op is a bit of a loaded one. There isn’t a cut and dried…. seasoned?… answer. Too many variables at play. Will wood season in the round. Well maybe. Depends on the species and conditions. Most of the Ash family will if it’s up off the ground, but even there there’s variations. Most notably green ash tends to rot much easier than white ash. Most wood will not if it’s just cut and left on the ground. Red oak won’t it will just rot from the outside in as the lignin is fed upon by various and plentiful fungi. White oak on the other hand would if stacked off the ground, but why would you since it takes way longer. Theses points don’t even touch on the variations in the size of rounds. Really it has to do with surface area, which @cus_deluxe touched on earlier.

 

[Mastermind]

I found a big dead red oak this morning while checking on my fences. Big mfer.

 

[ElevatorGuy]

I found a big dead red oak this morning while checking on my fences. Big mfer.

Get yer self a big ported saw from one of the great builders here, or borrow one from youngtex, heard he got the new ecihl cs2684cmp!

 

[Mastermind]

Get yer self a big ported saw from one of the great builders here, or borrow one from youngtex, heard he got the new ecihl cs2684cmp!

Naw man. Them kind of saws is loud and scary.

 

[Stump Shot]

I found a big dead red oak this morning while checking on my fences. Big mfer.

Those you can bank as they take a long long time to rot and even when they start it's just a little on the outside, the rest is still sound as a dollar. Poplar on the other hand will rot in the round unless it's split or bark removed, standing, cut, doesn't matter. Even 100 inch logs will loose a lot of sap weight if let set for a summer, they're not dry by any means, but don't take long to compared to green.
In spring I fell trees early in the morning before the sap comes up for the day.

 

[jakethesnake]

If it’ll fit through the door. No split
If it won’t. Split.

 

[jakethesnake]

If it’s questionable. Leave it whole. Take to stove. Curse. Take back outside. Then split