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Ambrosia Maple

Started by SW_IOWA_SAWYER, May 26, 2017, 10:09:26 AM

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SW_IOWA_SAWYER

I am going to be in Michigan in approx two weeks and I was wondering if anyone knows of a sawmill that I could get some ambrosia maple at. I know nothing about it other than I wants some :D. I am not even sure where the stuff comes from, is it just down south or would Michigan have it as well?

If you have any information or a lead in Michigan I would appreciate it.
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moodnacreek

There's no such tree as Ambrosia Maple.  It's usually wormy, soft Red Maple or it could be Silver or Norway Maple or even Sugar Maple with tiny worm tracks. 

xlogger

 

  Well I believe I have some Ambrosia Maple in my shed. The Maple get infected with the Ambrosia beetle, some do some don't.
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killamplanes

That looks like our lowland/swampy soft maple. It has those dark looking mineral stain tear drops throw them.
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grouch

xlogger's picture doesn't show mineral stain; it's ambrosia.

See here, for example:

Quote from: WDH on January 30, 2015, 07:37:34 AM
Ambrosia beetles.  The stain is a fungus that the beetle brings in.  Fungus feeds on sugars in wood.  Baby beetles feed on fungus.  The beetles are essentially farming the fungus. 

Find something to do that interests you.

sandsawmill14

 

 
Quote from: grouch on May 26, 2017, 05:16:56 PM
xlogger's picture doesn't show mineral stain; it's ambrosia.

See here, for example:

Quote from: WDH on January 30, 2015, 07:37:34 AM
Ambrosia beetles.  The stain is a fungus that the beetle brings in.  Fungus feeds on sugars in wood.  Baby beetles feed on fungus.  The beetles are essentially farming the fungus. 

grouch is right  :) and if you look in the stains you can see 1 or sometimes 2 tiny black holes where the beetle went in ;)
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hersnsh#590

  Is this any different than "spalted ample"  which seems most prevalent in sugar maple?
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grouch

Find something to do that interests you.

Darrel

spalting occurs when a log lays on the ground and is inoculated with the fungus as it lays on the ground. 
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sandsawmill14

the spalted comes just about 2 hours before the wood rots ;) ok maybe not hardly that quick but is the earliest stages of decay caused by a fungus i think :)

drrel beat me to it :D :D :D
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killamplanes

Learn somethin new everyday. I always called it mineral stain. now if I could just remember what I've been taught :P
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YellowHammer

Interestingly enough, some trees in the same stand of red maple attract the beetles better than others, maybe due to the sugar content or some other factor.  We buy a decent amount of ambrosia or wormy maple logs and they are much more rare here than clean red maple.  So some of the loggers we work with can recognize the signs of the infestation as they cruise the maple lowlands, and generally cut down a high percentage of the target trees because we pay them a premium for them.  They try to avoid just cutting down any old plain red maple, but hold those in reserve until the red maple price goes back up, generally following tie prices. 

Also, it's hard to get good logs in the winter as the places they inhabit generally are too wet, but it's also a very sticker stain prone wood, so some of the big mills here avoid milling it in the summer.  So we get our best logs in the summer but really have to work to keep them stain free.

It's  one of our best sellers.  Here is a good example of some curly ambrosia maple.  If you look close you can see the galleries or holes.


And another picture of some boards coming off the mill.


Here's what it looks like in the stump.  A very distinctive and recognizable pattern.



YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

Don P

The ambrosia beetle is a farmer. They bring in specific spores and grow fungi in the holes the larvae bore and care for it. They are even known to steal good spores from each other. They and that fungus have a symbiotic relationship that goes back much farther than our farming. That is what they are actually eating rather than the wood. You can tell their holes because they are black lined with the fungus compared to a powderpost beetle that has just a normal wood colored hole. They are sort of like bees, they have a social structure to the group with different jobs, child rearing, drilling, cleaning up the trash, etc. They must also groom one another constantly or they become covered in the fungus and die. Once the wood is sawed and dry it will no longer support their garden and they die leaving behind that pretty wood. They do hit other trees but not in the way they do maple, we got into a few in some poplar today.
I installed some ambrosia maple in a nature writers cabin some years ago and we were talking about it. I was describing the trees and she mentioned what she called the "honey tree". She said she could smell that tree from some distance. I knew exactly the tree she was talking about, I'm sure it contains some beautiful wood. It is so riddled that it sweats sugary sap and the smell surrounds it on a warm day, which I'm sure just calls in more beetles.

thecfarm

Nice!  That cant on the mill gives some size to the ambrosia.
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WDH

Actually, I believe that the streak in the wood is caused by the tree's reaction to the beetle, and the fungus that it is farming, by putting down heartwood around the infection site. 
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grouch

Quote from: WDH on May 27, 2017, 07:19:19 AM
Actually, I believe that the streak in the wood is caused by the tree's reaction to the beetle and the fungus that it is farming by putting down heartwood around the infection site.

YellowHammer's close-up of curly ambrosia looks like a cross-section of a tree turned inside-out. (Do I get some kind of prize for 3 hyphens in a sentence?) It's a warped, elongated tree section, but there are distinctive layers. Does it put down different kinds of bark as well as heartwood?
Find something to do that interests you.

OffGrid973

In Jersey my tree guy calls them silver maple, and sometimes the streaks are hit or miss. How much are you looking for up in Maine, small project or big job, that would impact who can most likely respond to your request in a PM.
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- Off Grid

bkaimwood

Quote from: WDH on May 27, 2017, 07:19:19 AM
Actually, I believe that the streak in the wood is caused by the tree's reaction to the beetle and the fungus that it is farming by putting down heartwood around the infection site.
Amen...in essence, the tree or log knows it's hurt and develops heartwood to protect itself...laments terms...dark streak relatively fresh beetle activity...heartwood color....grey, start of spalting, smokey gray color....festering longer...
bk

Cazzhrdwd

I look for maples with small hearts and large sap wood. They make the best figure.

Here's some I sawed the other day.

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Larry

I got a walnut bowl blank for wood turning a while back.  While turning I saw these dark streaks in the sapwood.  Sure enough it was ambrosia.  If I had known before hand I would have turned a bark edge bowl so it could be seen.  I was turning a cut edge and the ambrosia ended up in shavings.

I've never seen it as pronounced as in some of those pictures.  Wow....wish some would show up on my mill.
Larry, making useful and beautiful things out of the most environmental friendly material on the planet.

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Cazzhrdwd

Its in most of the maple around us. It was a chore trying to find Soft maple without it, I've now embraced it. :)
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tmbrcruiser

I have some sycamore logs that show signs of ambrosia beetle, hope to saw them soon.
Once you get sap in your veins, you will always have sawdust in your pockets.

etroup10

Here is some i cut last week. Log sat for awhile so the wood was stained.
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