$10,000 DNR Fine

[Bro. Noble]

So,  Al,

What are you going to do with all that walnut mulch?

I've heard that it's bad for horses and tomatoes.  Some plants won't grow under walnut trees,  but our grass pastures seem to thrive under them.  There are less weeds there though

We cut some walnuts out of a field that we wanted to plant to alfalfa. We ground the stumps and planted right over them.  After two years,  the alfalfa is about twice as tall where the trees were.

I would think that walnut mulch would be better than other mulch on certain crops where it would act as a natural weed control on some weeds.  I've mentioned Hammonds products in another thread.  They are one of if not the largest buyers of walnut meats in the world.  They probably have information on adding walnut hulls to the soil.

Mulch mixed with your neighbor's manure should be a real soil builder after it is blended and ages a while.

Must be some way to turn that stuff into an asset.

[FeltzE]

electric al.

Make sure you include your new mulch pile in your hazardous waste site plan, They consider the tannin in the wood waste a environmental hazard. I was just reading some federal paper on all that the other day. (found on the web searching)

Good luck

Eric

[Sawyerfortyish]

Thats true the guy I bought my first grinder off of had a runoff pond and the DEP tryed to fine him per gallon. So he started recyeling the runoff by pumping it back up on the mulch pile. DEP didn't like that but couldn't do anything about it. This would color the fresh ground stuff quicker.  He would sell truckloads of wet mulch and wherever the trucks dumped it then it was someone elses problem.

[ElectricAl]

Noble,

We just blended the Walnut in with everything else. We had completed most of our big walnut job before the DNR showed up. Walnut was only about 40% of the pile. Any way a Walnut slab or edging really contains a minimal amount of heart wood.

Alfalfa and Walnut are similar types of plants, they both produce a growth inhibitor that effect other plants. I read an article about a guy that took a freshly weaned puppy and kept it in a pen with fresh walnut sawdust for a year and the dog was stunted and only grew to 1/4 the actual size.


Eric,

Good idea on the site plan. We did pile it were we had a good stand of alfalfa, and any "run off" will spread out and soak in. We don't have any problem with puddling here.

Sawyerfourtyish,

Do you just blend your walnut in.

Do you use a 2" screen on your grinder?


We used a 2" screen and got 500-600 cuyds

[ElectricAl]

At about the 3 hour mark.


Here is a heavy grind


Done




Before

[Buzz-sawyer]

Al ,
a friend of mine debarks then converys all slabs to a smaller chipper, he has a deal with a plant 800 miles away, so they leave semi trailers for him to fill (2) trucks.
when they chip they also screen for fines, so they are putting out a product ready to use. He get $1500 a load for hardwood chips , I believe it goes into O.S.B ..
I think he send out a truck every couple of days, He cuts a WHOLE lot more than me!!

[Murf]

Up here a lot of the mills do one of two things to dispose of slabwood.

1) make a deal with some firewood people, they take the wood for free, but they have to take it all, then they just sell it cheap.

2) put a small ad in the paper, 'free firewood' usually they do it one particular day every month depending on volume, i.e., first Saturday of every month, or first & third Saturday, etc.

One of the flooring mills made a deal with the teenage son of an employee, he cuts slabs & rejects into 12-16" pieces after school on weeknights and spends Saturdays delivering really cheap firewood with the mills truck. They get rid of the wood for almsot nothing, and the kid is saving for college.

[Bro. Noble]

We have been fortunate to be able to sell our slabs to charcoal plants so far.

Because of the low value and distance to haul,  wh can hire a semi cheaper than we can haul on our strait truck.

Because of clean air restrictions,  charcoal plants keep closing down and our slabs have to be hauled farther.  Everyone knows what fuel prices have been doing.  Between those two factors,  we may have to start burning them.  The last load cost $120 to haul and brought $168.  The trucker said the next load would have to go to a kiln at a more distant location.  We're going to give it a try.  

There is quite a lot of hay hauled into this area from areas west of here that don't have a lot of trees.  I never could understand why they don't haul slabs back to sell for firewood.

[Larry]

Just curious.  When the chip mills were trying to come to the state one of the things we heard was
“residues from sawmilling and logging that are otherwise wasted could be utilized by the mill”.  Don’t know if that statement was or is true but there is a chip mill at Neosho.  Would they take your slabs Noble?

[Bro. Noble]

I think the chip mills require that the logs be peeled,  but I'm not sure.  

[SwampDonkey]

Up the road here at the cedar mill. All wood is shipped in from outside, since they've clearcut all their land way before they had a mill. But, anyway they sell or give any slabs away to whomever and the rest of the heap is burned. Keep in mind that they might........and this is stretch.......they might bring is 10 trailor loads a year to saw and its done in winter months. So its not high production.

And they are prolly about 150 miles from the nearest DOE inspector. I mean get real....there are thousands of acres of woods burned naturally in this province annually.

[SwampDonkey]

Bro Noble

I believe your right on the peeling of the bark from the logs. It doesn't make good pulp or OSB with bark.