Shag Bark Hickory

[Autocar]

It's been so hot that I moved my equipment back home for a while but started cutting dead trees here in the woods. I cut a number of hickorys,but this morning I cut them into firewood length. Stacking them in the back of the pick up truck I sat down to cool off and looked at this one peace. It looked like a old vynel record the growth rings were 1/64 of a inch. So I started counting them and it turned out to be 135 years old and what amazed me was it was just 12 inches in diameter. I felt bad thinking, here I am cutting this into firewood and it's that old. 

[SwampDonkey]

Just goes to show what many of us have been preaching, age can't be guessed to accurately based in diameter.

I was in a second growth stand of fir and aspen. The fir was about 3-6 feet tall and the aspen was 25-30 feet tall. The fir was 30-40 years old and the aspen was 12-15 years old. 

What happened was the mature fir died and crashed with a new crop underway, but the aspen was still healthy for a few more years before the stand was finally harvested. The fir was being held back by the aspen canopy until it was released from the harvest but the aspen suckered in the trails and drop zones and took off like a rocket above the fir. After a harvest, suppressed fir will take 3-5 years to begin growing in height with any significance. Being suppressed for so long is especially bad on fir.

[Piston]

I have a shagbark hickory in my front yard, I just recently cut down a white oak that was 100 yrs old, I imagine the hickory is about the same age.  The hickory is maybe 12" dbh and the white oak was right around 30" dbh.  The oak always shaded the hickory. 

That reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask.  Can you pick up the hickory nuts from the tree and put them in a pot and grow hickory trees?  I would like to plant about 50 or so in pots if possible, and transplant them in a year or so if they are established. 

[Autocar]

I am sure you can but I thnk they have to be frozzen to crack the nut then they sprout when spring arrives

[SwampDonkey]

If "crack the nut" is short for breaking dormancy, then yes to that. It's not like white oak that can sprout in the fall. If your yard tree didn't start from a nut, then how? It's a bit early maybe to collect nuts though.

Butternut up here isn't ready (ripe) until September for instance and sugar maple, yellow birch in October. Winter stratifies the seed and they don't need to be hard frozen, just near freezing for a few days or weeks. You can look it up on the USDA websites.

[Piston]

So when should I collect the nut?  Would I just put it in a pot?  Should I leave it outside?  I'm a rookie with this stuff 

[SwampDonkey]

Timing is everything, not only in collection but to get ahead of the animals. And if your burying the nuts outside this fall, which I would recommend, you'll have rodents with nut sonar and range finders digging for them.

I would look at USDA info for your region as to when to collect and how to plant.

I know with butternut, I just collect them when they fall off the trees from a frost and take a dibble bar that fall and poke 2" holes in the mud and watch them come to life next summer. I find new plants around the back yard and the woodlot often times that I've poked in the ground sometime. Some in the yard the squirrels have buried or they just fell off the tree and sprouted where thay landed. The woodlot ones are all my planting because there are no mature butternut anywhere near there for 3 miles.

[chain]

Shag-bark and scaly-bark are important 'leave' trees in our woods. The luna and regal moths feed off the leaves of hickory as well as the bark offers protection for some birds and bats...the bark serves as an important refuge for the endangered Indiana bat. Lots of plus's for these hickories; squirrels,  mice, white-tailed deer feed off the nuts and buds. One of the best smoker and charcoal wood available.

[Piston]

How long does it take a hickory to start getting the 'scaly' bark? 

[thecfarm]

I have one of them on my land. It's right beside the woods road. I can remember my Father showing it to me as a child.He never said where it came from. I had a local Forester come up to the veggie stand and he knew my Father and asked me about it. Told him still there in the same place.

[clww]

Our mountains on the western side of the state are loaded with them.

[Ironwood]

I cut some hickory in my understory for some rustic furniture. One "sapling" was in the shadow of a HUGE old red oak. 2 1/2"-3" diameter 50-60 years old  COOL, just hanging out waiting for it's "time" to release, to late I chopped it, but COOL!

[SwampDonkey]

Wish we could get some up here for some projects. Not so much furniture, but projects with a wooden framework like sleds and some tool wood. Trouble is, ash is pretty much the king of tool and ski/snow utility wood up here. Roy Underhill was on yesterday and his show was dedicated to hickory wood. He preferred fast grown hickory as it was less prone to failure in tool wood. Since it is an open grain wood, the faster grown is denser. It's all about the latewood.

clww, I've been in those mountains.

[Al_Smith]

Something is killing the hickory trees for some reason .I have no idea what it is.

Last spring I tripped a hunderd footer dead one that was a tad over 3 feet at the cut and left nearly 6 feet of stump .Growth rings were about 230-250 .I saved the logs which I hope to mill if I ever get my bandsaw done .

Great firewood of course and nice lumber but a tad hard on tooling .You about have to use carbide cutters .Being of the pecan family it looks the same to me but the real experts can tell the difference .

There about a half dozen or so dead ones in the woods next to me that I'll get when I find the time .I'm still up to my hip pockets in dead ash though at the moment .