Quandong pongdong!

[maplewoman]

Has anybody here grown Australian quandong elaeocarpus angustifolius?. The so called forest farming gurus in Australia are telling everybody to plant it as a fast growing pioneer for cabinet timber plantings :. In my experience this is not the case and it is a very sapy timber which takes 30-40 years to grow into a millable log. They are telling everybody first harvest is at 7 years, I find this very hard to believe even with all the chemical fertilizers they recommend putting on them. The boards would bend like bananas from such young, fast grown, sapy trees and they are no good as fence posts because they are softwoods. The timber stinks, puke! and the grain is ordinary. Also a brittle tree which only likes certain soils and good protection from the wind. Why oh why are they planting it on mass  in unprotected, shallow soils. The timber is good for joinery but there are other species that would perform better and dress nicer than Quandong. Why are they telling farm foresters it is a good timber to plant, the commercial value is not that good when compared to other valuable cabinet timber species. And I thought they would have realized by now that monocultures and row plantings are not the way to go when it comes to cabinet timbers, especially without proper windbreaks. Has anybody else seen poor advice in the forestry industry like this?  ???

[Tom]

That's interesting.  We don't have that tree in the US unless it is being grown as an ornamental.  I see where it has attractive flowers.

I'll keep reading and see if I can find out something, but, perhaps you will get a better answer by confronting the Gurus that are touting it.  If it were me I would go to my Government's Division of Forestry and have a sit-down session with a Forester.

Why are you so hard on Plantation grown trees?  I know that monocultures and row planting take a beating from the Environmental wackos, but, it isn't all a bad way to go.  There are some difficulties with disease but, then again, they are in a controlled environment where they are tended.  Trees grown in the wild are totally on their own.  Wild Trees may produce inferior stems too.  I'm not trying to sell you on something that we might disagree upon, but I don't understand the blanket condemnation of plantation trees either.

Sometimes the poor advice may a misunderstanding.  Perhaps your duty is a "mission". 

[SwampDonkey]

I don't know about the knock down of softwood for posts either. Years ago, all farms here where lined with cedar rail fences on the boundaries and a lot of these carrying off into the woods section of the farms. Today you can still find these old fence lines and are often used as survey references. Cedar is still being used as vertical posts for cow pastures. In my area it's abundant in sizes suitable for fences. Somewhere on here I have a picture of a cedar telephone pole that was planted in the ground in the 40's for the first phone lines. It exists now where farm houses once stood and have been abandoned, but the farm fields are being used and have been expanded many times. I have plantations on my woodlot, but they are not monoculture, every species that grows in NB is represented. Just because a tree was planted, doesn't mean the natural seed died or that those trees are inferior. In fact, those trees are genetically superior because of breeding programs or hand selection of the fruit from superior wild trees.

[Ron Wenrich]

I've always been told that hardwoods really don't do that well in plantations.  I have seen some that were done from back in the '30s & '40s.  They were pretty spotty as far as what survived. 

The ones that are fairly successful are walnut plantations.  But, walnut has a different kinda of growth pattern than other hardwoods.  It readily prunes itself and does a good job of keeping out competition through phytotoxins. 

I imagine if you would plant hardwoods at a fairly heavy amount, you would get adequate results.  Then, start to thin as the more dominant trees start to take over.  With hardwoods, crown expansion is the key.

As for the Australian query, recommendations are made whenever it seems like its a good idea.  They told us that planting multiflora rose would mean that we would never need fences again.  They were quite right.  The multiflora rose took over the pastures, so you didn't really have livestock anymore.   :D

[SwampDonkey]

No, I agree hardwood plantations would not be practical, mostly because of wildlife browse and as you mentioned, density. They need to grow thick when starting out. My hardwood, well 99.9999% are natural grown throughout the plantation. A lot of them were seed and some suckered, but I think most are single stemmed germinants that I'm targeting.  I just cringe when a nice single stemmed sugar maple or yellow birch gets cut off to leave a suckered clump of red maple.  Most of my planting stock was softwood on my ground. I planted yellow birch out there and the rodents ate them all before the end of the first season. Although, I did have good success which planting yellow birch in my old orchard. Then my folks started asking for some of them and I transplanted a few for them, as well as oak. Maybe 12 or so, oh and a butternut I started from seed. Deer won't leave them alone though.  :D :D :D :D

I've got to go out sometime and take density counts by species and see what my percentages are. It's been done before, but things change over time.

[Ron Wenrich]

They've started to do hardwood plantings in the Chesapeake Bay drainage area to help reduce the amount of sedimentation going into the streams.  All of their plantings are done in those hollow plastic tubes to prevent browse.  I looked in a few of those on one property that I was on.  Survival rate didn't look too good.  I'm thinking it gets too hot in those tubes to make it worthwhile. 

[jrdwyer]

The old saying, if it sounds too good to be true.

If we could just take back multiflora rose, Japanese honeysuckle, kudzu, tree-of-heaven, Norway Maple, and a host of others aggressive plants, things would be a lot better in the forest ecosystem.

Has anyone yet figured out how to eliminate juvenile wood from fast growing trees? It just seems that our wood quality standards have dropped over the years in response to fast growth.

I think some professional advice given by specialists can be off-track because they are not looking at the bigger picture.

[SwampDonkey]

Well I tell ya. If you can get Fraser Papers to pay me more for slow grown tight ringed spruce, rather than spaced and tended plantation grown then we'll talk shop.  We also better forget about 80 year time horizons/rotations because it's going to be hard to get much more than a 2x4 from the trees for , oh about 150 years. ;D :D :D And silviculture.....well that just got thrown out the window so a whole bunch of us might as well find a new career now. ;D While we are at it, we can close a few mills, as the woods being managed for slow growth now and we've pretty well got the old stuff cut that's accessible. So what few islands of tight grown wood that are left won't support all the sawmills. ;D

[Tom]

Jrdwyer, the only way I know is to cut it out with the saw.   Fast grown plantation pine is notorious for putting immature wood on the market.  Grown for chips, they are harvested on minimal roatation and the wood that may be mature is chipped for paper to make a square cant which is turned into a couple of 2x4's.  It'll just take more growing time to get the mature wood to saw. Close grain equals long rotation since grain represents a year, or at least a growing period. 

Immature centers and pith make a pretty good fence post.  Perhaps part of the solution is to change the buying habits of the public and start talking about how good that wide grain is. :D

Paulownia grows with a hollow for a pith and then fills the space as it matures. That's how it was explained to me.  So, I guess it has no immature wood.

If Kudzu could be created that would make a saw log, we would have more lumber than we could sell.  :D :D

[Ianab]

Has anyone yet figured out how to eliminate juvenile wood from fast growing trees? It just seems that our wood quality standards have dropped over the years in response to fast growth.

They have been working on it here in NZ
Most of our forestry is Radiata pine, and it's VERY fast growing. Part of it is selective breeding, and the other is propogating by cuttings instead of seed. When you take a cutting of a tree, the cutting thinks it's the age of the original plant (say 10 years). So it tries to grow in the form that a mature tree would, and doesn't lay down juvenile sapling wood the same as a normal young tree.
Of course if you saw out a 4x2 containing the pith and 2 growth rings you are asking for it to be unstable, juvenile wood or not  : It still makes it through the machine grading process and into your house, with it's appropriate grade stamp.

Apart from that juvenile wood issue the fast growing pine is generally pretty stable though. Especially if the trees have been pruned and then left to grow on a 25 year rotation so they put on a decent amount of clear mature wood.

Cheers

Ian

[Ron Wenrich]

I remember reading up on some hybrid walnut.  They said you could get an 18" tree in 25 years.  So, I asked a veneer buyer about it.  He said "Who would want it?"  There would be no growth rings, so their would be a very bland plywood that would be produced.  And, I also remember when ash for hockey sticks had to have 10 growth rings per inch in order to meet specs.  There was also the $50,000 walnut log down in Maryland just because of growth patterns.

So, I wouldn't say that you would be throwing silviculture out the window.  You would open up a lot of different avenues for the practice.  The Europeans have done away with clearcutting, for the most part, and have gone to 2 and 3 layers of forestry.  White oaks and beech are left to grow for well over 100 years.  Do they know something that we don't?

The American model is to grow as much as possible in the shortest amount of time.  Quality is of little concern, since the consumer will buy whatever is put in front of him.  The mills buy by weight instead of quality.  They also sell by volume and not quality.  Not necessarily done with hardwoods. 

[SwampDonkey]

This white ash will probably fill the bill, eh Ron? ;D




20-28 rings to the inch. This piece has a part of the pith not in view (the pith is a hollow section about 1 mm wide). White ash does tend to have a tiny pith present in my experience. The tree was 25 inches on the butt end as near as I can recall. It was growing on a typical old growth hardwood site with hard maple, yellow birch and maybe a few beech. I can tell ya, the first 10 years or so was faster growing then the rest of it's life and even then the rings were only twice as wide as you see. I counted 80 rings in 3-1/4", so it was only a 6-1/2" tree at that point. Who said white ash ain't shade tolerant? :D :D

[jrdwyer]

Tom,

Yes, posts and landscape timbers are a great use of juvenile wood SYP. We just have to get the retailers to not sell timbers with minimal preservative that rot away after 2-3 years.

Ian,

Radiata sure is an interesting species. I mostly see it here in the states as pre-primed moulding and 1x finish boards. From your description, I take it Radiata is being used as 2X framing material in New Zealand and Australia without any juvenile wood problems?

Ron,

Here is an oak lumber question. I post on another flooring message board once in a while  and professional flooring installers say that new oak flooring dents more easily (is softer) than oak flooring installed 50-100 years ago. These guys know their woods, so it's not a white versus red issue. Given that lumber/flooring cut today is on average denser due to younger trees/faster growth rates, then why does new oak flooring dent more? The only answer I could come up with is that some mills today are probably cutting the center of hardwood logs into low grade lumber and thus some juvenile wood is showing up in the lumber and strip flooring. Most of the mills in this area seem to leave the center for pallet cants, pallet lumber, or ties.

[beenthere]

jrdwyer
I realize you didn't address your question to me. But......
Don't believe all that you hear. Ya don't even need to believe me.  but the oak growth rate will be most important to density, faster the growth in oak the denser it is. There is no "juvenile" wood in hardwoods like there is found in softwoods (primarily southern pine).  The center wood near the pith has more small knots for defects and likely is the reason for going to lower quality uses. Professional flooring installers likely know little about wood, but are long on stories that support their intentions and sales pitch.
There are differences between northern red and southern red oaks. Information is available if its needed.

[SwampDonkey]

beenthere, is there more late wood being produced on faster grown red oak? It would certainly fit the notion. Just one of them things that doesn't seem intuitive and can sometimes trip a guy up. ;D :D I didn't realize until I just referenced it, that the width of early wood that gets laid down doesn't change much whether it's fast or slow grown.  But, the late wood which is denser, is significantly wider in fast grown oak. I even have a micrograph that demonstrates this. Holds true for white oak also, and I'm pretty sure it's the same for white ash, since white ash typically has early wood vessels laid down in bands of double rows.

Well, learned something new today. 

[Ron Wenrich]

I haven't been able to come across anything that says there is no juvenile wood in hardwoods.  But, that may not be the reason.

I've read some accounts of how lumber was sawn back in the older times.  They sawed a lot bigger logs than what we allow trees to grow today.  They also exported some of the hearts or used them in timbers.  Flooring was often cut from the outside of the log, along with other lumber. 

Due to the size of the logs, the angle in which the lumber was sawn is different.  They also used sash gang saws, which would have yielded more quartersawn lumber.  There may not have been as much flatsawn as we have today. 

Larger trees allow for a greater proportion of long, clear lumber than growing trees to a smaller size.  Maybe its just that they started with a higher quality of wood.

Denser woods tend to be less stable, ie they move more than less dense woods.  So wider growth rings would be denser, but would move more. 

[SwampDonkey]

I haven't been able to come across anything that says there is no juvenile wood in hardwoods. 

There is no avoiding juvenile wood unless your growing trees without foliage/crowns. ;D It forms a cylindrical column about the pith as a result of prolonged influence of the apical meristems in the region of the active crown on wood formation by the cambium. As the height of live crown retreats up the stem mature wood is formed.

[Ianab]

Radiata sure is an interesting species. I mostly see it here in the states as pre-primed moulding and 1x finish boards. From your description, I take it Radiata is being used as 2X framing material in New Zealand and Australia without any juvenile wood problems?

I wouldn't say 'no' problems. The juvenile and pith part of the log is never as stable as the rest of the log. But 'good enough' for construction work.. yes.

The stuff you see imported will be the more valuable / stable clear timber from the outside of pruned plantation trees. Although the trees are only 25 years old the logs will be 24-36" inches and have had all the lower branches pruned off early. Lots of clear stable timber even though it was fast growing. Pity it's only pine and not a nice hardwood though   :

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

Ian, how would ya like to be growing hardwood as fast as that wood sample. ;D :D :D

[Ianab]

Ian, how would ya like to be growing hardwood as fast as that wood sample. ;D :D :D

I could plant some now for my great great great great great grankids maybe?  :D

[beenthere]

Ron and SD
I knew as soon as I typed "no" that it wasn't absolute. For sure, there is wood that is 'juvenile' in the first several growth rings. That said, I was meaning more of a problem wood, like found in the core of softwoods. 

But on checking, I ran across a paper that was written about a study of juvenile wood in hardwoods and some discussion of what it is and how it reacts. Hope it helps, and I even learned some from it as well. 
Juvenile wood in hardwoods

[SwampDonkey]

beenthere, after I typed my post I went back and read yours again and I could see that you didn't mean 'absolute' as well.

Ok, what's next?  Oh...I gotta read your paper. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Pretty much the same information as in the 'Text Book of Wood Technology: 4th Ed.', which was one of the references sited. ;D

[asy]

Coming back round to the Quandong question, If you're interested, have a look at Jack Mitchell's site Andy and I have done his Weekend Forestry course, and it's fabulous. What Jack doesn't know about Quandongs isn't worth knowing.

asy :D