Coppicing and pollarding willows could also work well to gather tree hay to store over winter for animals. I had never really thought about it for firewood before though.
I have one coppiced white mulberry, three still in pots, and 34 black mulberry in pots ready for planting in a few months. My favorite fruit is black mulberry.
Helpful video! + Can confirm this is how we do it over in France as well. Not just firewood but mainly, and also a lot of people forgetting and not caring anymore after they hired someone to do their first big cut for $. btw I hate poplars. We have a LOT of them here, entire monocultures of those, they're just so annoying. There's little reason to dislike them, I just don't. But I also saw a man not allergic to pollen turn allergic overnight because we worked on cutting a few poplars for a village that couldn't afford them to potentially fall and destroy property. Poplars are an allergen menace, would not recommend to grow if that's something to consider during spring for you or yours. So why do people plant them so much here? Their wood is big money (well the supply is high so not as much but still), grows fast as hell, and there's an entire industry of people crossing genomes of poplars together and sell them for royalties. And lastly they don't handle being in a firewood stockpile very well. Rot more easily than anything else, probably due to the fact that their wood is soft and soaks up water so much. Willow is not really a thing here for anything except basket weaving, so I'm not sure how this one handles storage. That said my land is super humid, so I'll try that and another tree that likes this kind of ground, instead of poplar. I hate poplar.
Osage Orange/ hedge apple for border tree, fence row use. Oak/Pine/Hickory mix in the woods. Osage matches up favorably with coal, so consider having a coal capable stove tomake sure it handles the heat. Oak for furniture, pine for building, hickory for durability/tools. Fill in with drought tolerant species as well. Willow needs a lot of water. Yes you would need to coppice since "trimming" promotes growth, maybe keep main stem depending upon species for seed/ fruit production.
This is exactly what I have been looking for. Does your calculation account for how the room each tree type needs to grow? and how many can fit on an acre based on that? I imagine I can fit more hybrid poplar trees on an acre vs willow, for example.
Interesting! As an older woman that burns wood for my stove , I am not terribly picky,but my goodness,the red oak whick I have alot of,is sure hard to split. I never thought of using these other trees,which kind of willow? Any?
Great analysis! I'd like to be able to do this kind of analysis with more trees that are local to my area. How do I find the stats on the trees I'm interested? The hardest stats to find are growth rate because of the fact that some trees are taller or wider. So less vertical growth may not mean less wood, etc.
MOst odf the date is pretty old and hard to find. Most of ti came out in the 20s and again in the fuel sortage of the 80s, but no one seemed to ever keep good info after that. Honestly a lot of what I have learned I did not copy the original source, just took a few notes.
Very interesting analysis. Thank you. What is your experience as far as creosote build up in your stove pipe? I've always heard that pine& poplar are much dirtier than oak?
Pine and poplar won't cause chimney fires any more than hardwood. Creosote buildup is a result of a cold fire. It's increased by wet wood (which also makes a cold fire). It happens from an incomplete combustion and gets worse when there is extra moisture in the pipe, which causes a higher rate of buildup. Pine and poplar actually have a higher burn temperature than oak. Oak, being dense, burns more slowly and gets covered by a thin layer of ash as it burns. That ash cuts down oxygen to the coals. Softwoods create significantly less ash and heat up to the point of auto combustion faster, making them release BTUs faster than oak. Pine actually has a higher smoke flash point (flame temperature) than other woods which adds to its burning temperature. I have found softwood to dry out much faster than oak, potentially making it even more safe to burn. But, it also absorbs water faster too.
Before people start going off on me for just rephrasing your video ;) I wrote this in response to your opening question. ;) If you're going to plant it for firewood, nothing is more important than the rate of growth. Oak and hickory are terrible choices. The BTU rating isn't really worth a dime - if you're waiting to harvest it twenty years from now. What are the BTU's per Year? And again, if you're going to plant it, you can't be waiting for it to get to fifteen inches diameter. You need to be willing to use "stick fuel" instead of "logs". Which, btw, saves all that time and energy splitting wood. If you're like me and your site is a mature woodland, you can harvest a large amount of firewood just doing woodland maintenance working to improve your trees' health and the quality of your woodland. I've got loads of what, in my context, are weed trees - sassafras and soft maples. I can harvest a bunch of these, still have loads untouched, And the ones I cut will come back (coppice) and on about a 5 to 7 year cycle both varieties are giving another firewood harvest.
No idea where you are at, but I have heard that Ash and Black Locust are great candidates for a coppice system as they are Nitrogen Fixers and Pioneer species, so they can do well on most sites. Black locust seems like an ideal tree as well as its supposed to produce a rot resistant pole wood in addition to being a flowering tree for bees. I think I remember reading that Ash and Hazel were the coppice of choice for Europe, though that may have been for use as building materials over straight BTU.
I grew up in Michigan savanna/sand dunes. There was an argument to be made for locust there, but it wasn'tsomethingI would have chosen today. I currently live in an old Michigan forrest that was clear-cut and buldozed 40 years ago. Ash and hazleare more of a traditional wattle and pole material trees for building and weaving. I know of several old oak coppices too, but they are only harvested about every 45-50 years. My neighbors old barn is framed with poplar logs, squared and pinned at the ends.
Did you look at Paulownia (very rapid coppiced growth, cold hardy) and Eucalyptus (fast growth with a fair btu)? Looks like you've found a great solution for your area. It's always better to plant natives if they'll do the job.
Chinese elm trees give off about as much energy as pine, but they grow insanely fast and they keep coming back after you cut it down. Their roots grow straight down too. I like to feed the leaves and bark to my goats after I cut them down and then I have lots of firewood left.
Chinese elm is the densest elm and doesn't grow as fast as many other elm species, such as Ulmus americana and Ulmus minor, which are a couple of the most common. Great for bows and woodcraft. The native rock elm grows a lot bigger and has the hardest rockwell, giving it its own set of uses, but is also slow growing.@@homesteadknowhow
I don't need to spit coppice wood because it's 8 inches or smaller in diameter. Plus, take into factor the cost of land. A 5-acre coppiced woodlot will yield as much fuel wood as 15 acres of wild grow forest. With land at $7,000-$15,000, an acre, very few people can afford the classic 40 acres.
Coppicing and pollarding willows could also work well to gather tree hay to store over winter for animals. I had never really thought about it for firewood before though.
I use it for both at the same time. Leaves go to the animals, and wood goes in the stove. And, it's small enough so you don't need to split anything.
Niiice! I look forward to planting my willow cuttings. Thank you for sharing your video. Have a great day!
Thank you. I'm so glad you watched today! We're still planting more willow and poplar, and working on crafting a rainwater pond in the midst of them.
Hybrid Poplar trees are the way of the future, they are great for lumber as well fire wood.
I just watched your video on cleaning a propane heater! The best! And this info is so helpful! Thank you!!!
Willow, and h. poplar also provide leaf fodder for livestock, and basketry material. So they are great multi purpose trees.
I feed my rabbits the raw leaf, and I'm experimenting with adding it with grains as a pellet for my pigs and chickens.
I’m running some experiments coppicing Mulberry. I (and my livestock) also enjoy the berries.
I have one coppiced white mulberry, three still in pots, and 34 black mulberry in pots ready for planting in a few months. My favorite fruit is black mulberry.
This video inspired me to look up the actual BTU output. They’re coming in hot (pun intended) at 26M BTUs/cord.
@@johnohearn1216 That's about what I see here with our mulberry. Right about the same as our Red Oak.
Locust hands down. Fast growth ,great heat content.
Putting the scientific facts out might even persuade some of those who are set in their ways 😊
Sometimes it's worse than talking to my pigs.
Helpful video!
+ Can confirm this is how we do it over in France as well. Not just firewood but mainly, and also a lot of people forgetting and not caring anymore after they hired someone to do their first big cut for $.
btw I hate poplars. We have a LOT of them here, entire monocultures of those, they're just so annoying. There's little reason to dislike them, I just don't.
But I also saw a man not allergic to pollen turn allergic overnight because we worked on cutting a few poplars for a village that couldn't afford them to potentially fall and destroy property. Poplars are an allergen menace, would not recommend to grow if that's something to consider during spring for you or yours.
So why do people plant them so much here? Their wood is big money (well the supply is high so not as much but still), grows fast as hell, and there's an entire industry of people crossing genomes of poplars together and sell them for royalties.
And lastly they don't handle being in a firewood stockpile very well. Rot more easily than anything else, probably due to the fact that their wood is soft and soaks up water so much. Willow is not really a thing here for anything except basket weaving, so I'm not sure how this one handles storage.
That said my land is super humid, so I'll try that and another tree that likes this kind of ground, instead of poplar. I hate poplar.
Osage Orange/ hedge apple for border tree, fence row use. Oak/Pine/Hickory mix in the woods. Osage matches up favorably with coal, so consider having a coal capable stove tomake sure it handles the heat. Oak for furniture, pine for building, hickory for durability/tools. Fill in with drought tolerant species as well. Willow needs a lot of water. Yes you would need to coppice since "trimming" promotes growth, maybe keep main stem depending upon species for seed/ fruit production.
I bet a well filled out osage hedge would really help keep my pigs contained.
Great info I've been looking for. Thanks for posting this!
Glad you liked it.
I have been enlightened ---- Thank you Sir !!!
It is pretty cool.
This is exactly what I have been looking for. Does your calculation account for how the room each tree type needs to grow? and how many can fit on an acre based on that? I imagine I can fit more hybrid poplar trees on an acre vs willow, for example.
Yes it does.
Great video.
Thanks!
Red Alder, here in the Pacific North West.
Well worth the watch. Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it
Really good info thank you
Interesting! As an older woman that burns wood for my stove , I am not terribly picky,but my goodness,the red oak whick I have alot of,is sure hard to split. I never thought of using these other trees,which kind of willow? Any?
There is a hybrid willow for faster growth, but any willow is decent and will grow in most soils.
Great analysis! I'd like to be able to do this kind of analysis with more trees that are local to my area. How do I find the stats on the trees I'm interested? The hardest stats to find are growth rate because of the fact that some trees are taller or wider. So less vertical growth may not mean less wood, etc.
MOst odf the date is pretty old and hard to find. Most of ti came out in the 20s and again in the fuel sortage of the 80s, but no one seemed to ever keep good info after that. Honestly a lot of what I have learned I did not copy the original source, just took a few notes.
Very interesting analysis. Thank you. What is your experience as far as creosote build up in your stove pipe? I've always heard that pine& poplar are much dirtier than oak?
Pine and poplar won't cause chimney fires any more than hardwood. Creosote buildup is a result of a cold fire. It's increased by wet wood (which also makes a cold fire). It happens from an incomplete combustion and gets worse when there is extra moisture in the pipe, which causes a higher rate of buildup. Pine and poplar actually have a higher burn temperature than oak. Oak, being dense, burns more slowly and gets covered by a thin layer of ash as it burns. That ash cuts down oxygen to the coals. Softwoods create significantly less ash and heat up to the point of auto combustion faster, making them release BTUs faster than oak. Pine actually has a higher smoke flash point (flame temperature) than other woods which adds to its burning temperature. I have found softwood to dry out much faster than oak, potentially making it even more safe to burn. But, it also absorbs water faster too.
Black locust or Osage orange trees-my research shows they grow very fast and require little to no maintenance
Osage grows fairly well in my area.
Before people start going off on me for just rephrasing your video ;) I wrote this in response to your opening question. ;) If you're going to plant it for firewood, nothing is more important than the rate of growth. Oak and hickory are terrible choices. The BTU rating isn't really worth a dime - if you're waiting to harvest it twenty years from now. What are the BTU's per Year? And again, if you're going to plant it, you can't be waiting for it to get to fifteen inches diameter. You need to be willing to use "stick fuel" instead of "logs". Which, btw, saves all that time and energy splitting wood. If you're like me and your site is a mature woodland, you can harvest a large amount of firewood just doing woodland maintenance working to improve your trees' health and the quality of your woodland. I've got loads of what, in my context, are weed trees - sassafras and soft maples. I can harvest a bunch of these, still have loads untouched, And the ones I cut will come back (coppice) and on about a 5 to 7 year cycle both varieties are giving another firewood harvest.
No idea where you are at, but I have heard that Ash and Black Locust are great candidates for a coppice system as they are Nitrogen Fixers and Pioneer species, so they can do well on most sites. Black locust seems like an ideal tree as well as its supposed to produce a rot resistant pole wood in addition to being a flowering tree for bees.
I think I remember reading that Ash and Hazel were the coppice of choice for Europe, though that may have been for use as building materials over straight BTU.
I grew up in Michigan savanna/sand dunes. There was an argument to be made for locust there, but it wasn'tsomethingI would have chosen today. I currently live in an old Michigan forrest that was clear-cut and buldozed 40 years ago. Ash and hazleare more of a traditional wattle and pole material trees for building and weaving. I know of several old oak coppices too, but they are only harvested about every 45-50 years. My neighbors old barn is framed with poplar logs, squared and pinned at the ends.
Wats closest spacing fir biomass fir the polar n willow ?
For green biomass, 1 foot apart in gowd with severl feet between rows. For wood, 6 and 12 feet are the popular spacings.
Did you look at Paulownia (very rapid coppiced growth, cold hardy) and Eucalyptus (fast growth with a fair btu)?
Looks like you've found a great solution for your area. It's always better to plant natives if they'll do the job.
I've read a bit about eucalyptus, but I don't know much data about it.
Chinese elm trees give off about as much energy as pine, but they grow insanely fast and they keep coming back after you cut it down. Their roots grow straight down too. I like to feed the leaves and bark to my goats after I cut them down and then I have lots of firewood left.
I haven't read much about them. I have a few coppiced elm here for rabbit feed. I'll look into chinese Elm.
Chinese elm is the densest elm and doesn't grow as fast as many other elm species, such as Ulmus americana and Ulmus minor, which are a couple of the most common. Great for bows and woodcraft. The native rock elm grows a lot bigger and has the hardest rockwell, giving it its own set of uses, but is also slow growing.@@homesteadknowhow
Would you rather chop and split 1 cord or 3 cords?
I don't need to spit coppice wood because it's 8 inches or smaller in diameter. Plus, take into factor the cost of land. A 5-acre coppiced woodlot will yield as much fuel wood as 15 acres of wild grow forest. With land at $7,000-$15,000, an acre, very few people can afford the classic 40 acres.
Around here Birch is the most common firewood
Not much birch in my locality. It's more common as I go north.
White pines grows fairly quick, Id rather save it for lumber though.
I'm in the White Pine state. It grows a foot or two a year around here. My landrace poplar grew 8-12 feet since I cut it down last spring.
I guess coppiced willow is best if you are growing your own, Osage or hickory is best if you are buying it
Sounds like a good assessment.
Willow
Oak and aspen
Birch?
Birch doesn't regrow as well as other options. But it's an option when you get further north than poplar like to grow.
If coppicing is so great, why did everyone give up on it ?
If you have an abundance of land, it's easier to clear cut every 50 years. Coppiced wood is also less suited to mill for dimensional lumber.
Osage orange
i would think poplar
It's not a bad choice.