Red Rot

[adirondack harvester]

I was wondering what causes red rot in White Pine?  Mineral content,  excessive water??  Second question, is this a genetic defect that could be transferred if the seed tree has this problem?

[Texas Ranger]

If it is heart rot your talking about, then no, no genetic marker that will cause the off spring to have the disease.  But, down here we call it red heart, and it is a fungus innoculated by damage and insects.

[extrapolate85]

In general, red rot in White pine is caused by Fomes Pini fungus (besides red rot, common names are conk rot, snoose rot, white-speck. A spore attaches itself to a knot stub and infects the tree. In early stages it is a red stain, but eventually mycelia invades the wood cells (white speck) and in advanced cases eats away at the cell walls (honeycomb). Scalers find it by spudding (chopping into) dead knot stubs. There are other decays which can cause a red coloured rot in White pine, but fomes is the most common and causes the most economic losses.

[adirondack harvester]

What I called red rot is the red stain in the wood that surrounds the center of tree and the diameter varies from tree to tree.  This stain would clean up after 8 or more feet ,but obviously the best part of the tree is lost.  The majority of the affected trees were in a wet area but some were above this wet area so I was wondering if this was genetic or mineral or could spread from infected trees to healthy or new seed trees?

[Pullinchips]

Are you sure your not referring to the resin soaked heartwood.  In a tree is will occur earliest and most often near the stump as this is the oldest part of the tree if so this is natural and part of the trees aging.  It would clear up at a certain point as to where that specfic tree is no longer producing the resious soaked heart wood.

Been a while sice i have last posted but i am still around.

-Nate

[getoverit]

by any chance is this what you are talking about?



I had been cutting yellow pine all day when I ran across this log. The color of the wood was red and it had this strange pattern in the cookie I cut off of the log. The boards seemed to have more resin than normal but seemed strong enough.

[Pullinchips]

some of that looks like blue stain,
But guys that is a pictur of heart wood especially if it had "more sap than normal" this is a natural characteristic of older slower growing tight ringed pines, which are more sought after and valuable than the loose ringed junk that we grow in plantation forestry now. Not knocking the profession just the honest truth look at what heart pine floors cost.  They always salvage b/c we have no more large quantities of natural slow growing pines to harvest.

-nate

[SwampDonkey]

Getoverit, did ya hit any metal in that log? In maple we see it in the but log around tap holes where the old aluminum spiles were set. If your gonna tap maples, tap the crooked non veneer ones.

[getoverit]

I didnt find any metal in it. Except for the strange color ad the "above normal" amount of sap in the butt portion of the log, it was a clear log with little, if any, knots in it. The guy who fell it allowed the bark to get scraped off , and the bottom foot or so of the log was pretty well blue. When I cut this last foot off of the log, this was the pattern I found. I had never seen it before or since.