15% -20% deep cut all the way around. Two cuts spaced about 6" apart does nicely. They'll stand there & die, done in winter or late fall after the sap is in the roots works best. On an Aspen I'd bet the limbs would be fairly dry by the following late summer, early fall.
I don't see what you gain. All Winter long cold dry wind can be sucking moisture out of rounds. Or, cut into one meter sections and split them in half to season all Winter. Seems to me you're just losing 6 months of seasoning time. Those little sprouts aren't sucking moisture out of the center of the log which is what everyone is trying to get dry.
Remember - the drying-time clock doesn't start until the rounds are split. You need to keep that in mind regarding your 3yr plan.
correct. The old wives tale is cut them late spring while fully leaved and the leaves will continue sucking out moisture during the summer. It’s continues, for those interested, when the leaves turn brown it’s seasoned. That’s the tale as I’ve heard it anyway. Now the leaves probably do continue sucking moisture but seasoned is just a little far fetched FWIW I’ve never seen a felled tree go through winter and releaf in the spring. Suckers maybe but not a full canopy. In reality it’s just a tale. Late spring the tree will have come awake and soaked up a ton more water than if you drop it in winter.
This, and the comment above it being 6 months of drying time letting that go to waste. If you cut and then split in half, that’ll do better than just leaving them whole. The dry difference will be made when you finish splitting those halves in the spring and summer. Stack in that sunny and airy part of your yard
This is how I was taught to dry trees. Realize my grandfather was a farmer. In the 1920s, he figured out that dry wood gave more heat. He also burned about 35 cord a year because insulation wasn't invented yet. Now being a farmer in Vermont, March is sugaring season than planting season and fall is very busy with harvesting.. So wood was done in winter.. Easier to have horses pull sleds over snow.. Girdle tree.. Next winter CSS, burn next year.
Excepting kiln drying, there are no short cuts. If there were everyone here would be doing it already.
With the equipment you have, CSS now in the woods on poles off the ground. I've learned the hard way about stacking big logs for months, even on big poles and top covered, they don't dry fast enough. Don't have any experience with Aspen, but the only trees down here that put out a few leaves after being cut is sweet gum, usually on a pulp yard where they keep them wet before processing into chips.
In case I haven't welcomed you yet, please allow me to welcome you to the forum. I would like to know what part of Canada you live in. For sure it seems that can make a difference with aspen as the ones that grow in the far north are a bit different from the ones in Southern Canada. 1. The guys are right. Cutting a tree and leaving it lay over the winter gains you nothing. The only way that tree will dry is to get it cut to length, split and stacked in the air so it can dry. Sun is nice but wind is a huge factor when it comes to drying. 2. The old wives tale about the leaves on the tree actually started with cutting the trees in the late summer or early fall and then the leaves that were already on the tree would tend to draw moisture from the trunk. They will, but you won't notice the difference because it is so slight. 3. An 18" tree is not that big for sure so can easily be cut and handled by most men and many women and children. Yet for aspen, that is a good sized tree indeed as they tend to not grow as large as, say, maple and oak. 4. Having atv is great for getting firewood. We've done that very same thing for years. I still prefer cutting to length on site yet skidding, say, an 8' log with atv is easy, especially with snow, or with a dray (and snow still helps a lot), or a wagon or trailer. There is also a log arch that is available and work great. TurboDiesel and walt could chime in on that as they both have one. 5. I would highly recommend you read this online or even download it to your computer. Being fairly new at this you may find it extremely valuable: Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage Just click on the link.
Do what you can when you can. There is significant value in cut and stacked in round form. Not as good as split, but way better than sitting in log form. It is always more efficient to do the whole job in a block of time rather than spacing it out. The longer it sits and leaves fall off and grass grows up, the harder it is to clean everything up. But one does what one has to. Waiting for the perfect time to do the perfect job is a surefire recipe for getting nothing done.
Agree with the others, nothing gained by felling the tree and leaving over winter. My limited experience with aspen (high Sierra, 1972) tells me that it dries fairly quickly once split and stacked. You MAY find that if CSS in the spring it will be dry enough to burn come winter. It will definitely be quite dry the following year. Three years applies to oak and other slow-to-dry hardwoods. It's still an excellent idea to be three years ahead just in case you are unable to cut one year. I would definitely top-cover the stacks to keep them dry.
Eh, I've seen enough instances where the drying time does start when they are bucked. This is especially true on softwoods. Obviously the sooner you can css it, the better and quicker it dries.
I wouldn’t let aspen trees on the ground for very long, speaking from experience. They will go punky quickly. They dry quickly, cut split and stack right away.
Thanks for your advice everyone. With my current situation i think the most i could realistically do would be to cut and stack on perpendicular spruce trunks (elevated from the ground) right where i dropped the tree. I would then leave them there and grab them in spring, split them and stack them in my newly built wood shed. Is that a better compromise?
Is it cold enough there yet so no mushroom/fungi grow on the when bucked? One of my pet peeves. Im amazed here as ive felled and bucked wood this time of the year and within a week stuff is starting to grow on them. Guess i like to keep wood as "clean" as possible.
That should work, but get some 6 mil (or heavier) poly and top cover, leaving the sides mostly open to breathe. They will dry significantly over the winter.
Getting pretty close to freezing point, especially at night. We do still get nice, sunny, relatively warm days once in a while but right now it's cloudy and 7 degrees celcius
