I had heard of locust but never knew how rot resistant and what great firewood it is til i joined FHC. Never processed any either. These were from an old fence we pulled out at my friends yesterday. He may reuse them, if not, firewood. I was surprised how little it had decayed. Im familiar with Eastern red cedar and white oak in terms of rot resistance, just not locust. Learn something new all the time! Thanks FHC!
A lot of the farm barbed wire posts are ERC around here. What is the life expectancy of a post say 4-5" diameter? Is it just the heartwood Nordic Splitter?
Not sure but I had a friend growing up. His folks were from Germany and his mother had a massive garden. The entrance to it was a mini-grape orchard..I remember the posts just like the ones shown in this thread...
Old farmer's tale says that if you put a rock on top of a new locust post, at some point in time your grandkids will have to replace the rock.
My old man has some on his property. I have seen home videos of 30 years ago with those thing still in the same place. I will fall apart before those things.
Couple of neat locust facts... It is a short lived tree, 125 years is its lifespan. The Honey locust seed pods look like giant pea pods. The inner meat is sweet, hence the honey name. This probably attracts animals to eat them. The seeds need to go through the digestive tract of a large animal like a cow before they can germinate. Honey locust is often found in the old cow pastures of Central NC. Folks make beer and feed cattle with the pods. The honey locust variety has huge thorn clusters. It is theorized that these clusters were to protect the immature seed pods from the North American wooly mammoth. Here is a split of Honey locust from my pasture. Almost no sapwood. 2nd highest BTU in North America. #1 goes to Osage Orange. wooly mammoth protection:
Nice facts. We had one down here in GA when I was a young man. I remember daddy had this fellow that helped him, cut it down.
It has been said that if a man were to have a "firewood garden" the locust tree would be the species of choice due to its fast growth, propensity to grow volunteers and it's high BTU per lb. The wood has a high silica content so its hell on cutter teeth. If I buck locust logs at dusk, sparks are easily seen. I have never cut Osage orange but I suspect it is hell on chains also.
Welcome to the forum Slacker. Thanks for the education on the locusts. I like all except for those ugly thorns! Glad we don't have any here. The part about putting the see through a cow is the same as with an apple. That is the very best way to get apple trees to grow. Cheap too.
We have tons of Honey Locust in our woods. I got a sawmill so I can make a deck for on the back of the house out of it. I've been playing with quarter sawing and hope to make the deck boards all quartersawn. Whatever isn't straight enough for saw logs becomes firewood. It is VERY good firewood and takes a couple years to air dry down to where I like it for the wood stove. I even got some steel insoles for my work boots for when I cut it. Some don't have a lot of thorns and others like the picture earlier in the thread are just LOADED. They are mean to work with and I try to make sure to get all the thorns off before pulling the logs out to the trails. I keep spare innertubes for the tractor tires and plenty of plugs on hand for the quads' tires... They are mean. My wife has a black spot on the bottom of her foot where a HL thorn got her through her shoe when she was a kid. Her folks had originally purchased this farm when she was 12. Some of the fencing is still around that was HL from when the barn was built in '52.
A lot of Honey Locust you see now is a hybrid- sans thorns, but the seeds from same if germinated may revert back to the thorn type- go right through a steel belted tire.
I Know...seen that scenario before myself. Wish Locust was so abundant and offered as rot resistant commercial lumber instead of that god awful chemically treated wood. Though I suppose driving a nail through it would be damm near impossible haha!
I have sprouted many apple seeds and planted them from apple cores I’ve eaten. Just remove seeds from the apple core. Place the seeds in a plastic baggie wrapped in a moistened paper towel, place in refrigerator and wait about two weeks. By then they usually have begun to sprout and you can transfer them to soil in a pot on your window sill. Easy as pie. No cow needed!
...and here’s one that is now in the ground in my backyard. This was started from a store bought apple I ate two years ago. And before anyone tells me a tree planted like this will produce poor quality fruit I already know. I am not raising these for fruit. I am planning on using them for firewood and coppicing them in my retirement years. Check back in another 15 or more years and I will let you know how it’s going...
Im just glad you didnt do it the way the cows do it Timberdog All kidding aside, ill have to give it a try next time we have apples. Ms. buZZsaw has gotten into planting tree seedlings.