I know it makes some great firewood but it was in the way and it has knives on it!! I would've been much more comfortable using a grapple that's for sure, cut n poked up trying to bungee cord them to the bucket! I believe it's black locust that has the massive sticker's correct? I have tons of other similar sized trees and the stickers are ΒΌ inch smaller. On to the bonfire with these!
The black locust we have down here in East Texas have long thorns up and down the trunk of the tree. These thorns remind me of 12 penny nails and will puncture a tractor tire in a heartbeat! I always try to hand stack the black locust on the burn pile to keep the thorns from being dislodged from the main tree itself, then set them on fire. I hate black locust!
I kinda figured this was BL since the thorns were much larger and being a sapling they may not be full grown yet. I might have a snow covered fire this year! Cause why not
Honey locust is what we called the big thorn locust trees where I grew up. The needles can be burned off pretty easily with a propane torch. I used to use the needles to make frogging gigs on the end of a small swamp willow slappings. Not all honey locust grow really big needles in large quantities. It seems to me it's related to how much physical stress or attack they have. We had a few in a lot with no livestock or deep in the woods with almost no needles. We had some in winter feed lots and at the edge of the woods that would have a lot. If the cows rubbed up against them when they were young the trees would put on a cluster of needle 6 ft tall with no place to put your finger to touch the trunk. Same with trees that were next to gates that the fence vibrated against every time the gate swung.
I had a rose bush that was always being eaten by deer. It grew stalks with the thickest and biggest crop of thorns I have ever seen. We fenced off the rose bush so they couldn't get at it and all the new stalks after that came up with regularly spaced thorns.
So, these are honey locust? do young black locust have the thorn pods? I can't keep these 2 straight!
HL (pictured) has the evil thorn clusters. BL doesnt at any age. "Domesticated" HL has no thorns at all and is a very popular landscape tree and still excellent firewood. BL, for the most part, has rose like thorns on the limbs. Not all BL have the thorns IME. I have no experience cutting thorny HL (only know of two thorny ones in my area) so the limbs pictured in your OP could be either.
Cut some nasty Honey Locusts today. Good firewood but a lot of work to clean them up for handling. Sent from my SM-S536DL using Tapatalk
The ones I have ar not super thorny. A sharp machette usually skins them off quick. Trick is remembering not to drive a rubber tired vehicle where they were removed. I mostly take the time to gather the clusters and throw them on the burn pile.
