Had a recent black birch score. Looking at the growth rings was really interesting today. I suspect the wood that I had was from the main trunk of tree- about 8-10 inches in diameter. The heartwood had growth rings about 1/16 apart, maybe a bit more. The sap wood was the real stunner- I was seeing growth rings no more than 1/32 apart. In one part of the round, the rings were immeasurable- probably 20 rings in a space 1/4 thick! There are some great videos online about black birch trees on YouTube from the “New England forests” channel that describe how age of these trees is better estimated by bark cracking progression than size of tree. The video seems pretty accurate and I estimated that my 10 inch round was actually about 100 yrs old. What’s really cool is that I’ve definitely seen black birches in the forest that were even smaller than this but still in that 100+ yr age range.
T Thats cool. Ive seen the same on Western red cedar stock. Remember counting 200+ rings on a red cedar 2x4.
