Cause of wind shake in Hemlock

[Sawyerfortyish]

What causes wind shake in eastern hemlock? I always was lead to believe that wind rocking the tree caused the shake. But in talking to someone a while back they told me that a infection in the roots weakens the wood in the tree allowing wind shake to happen.This is just the opposite of what iv'e been told and led to believe.! :-/

[Jeff]

Good question. I dont know the answer, but I always heard that wind shake in hemlock and cottonwood was the result of disease. My understanding is that healthy trees are tempered and strengthened by wind (Moderate or normal winds not storm strength). That only the trees with the pre-existing health problems are damaged by normal wind motion.

Good question for the foresters!

[Ron Wenrich]

Shake is caused by a bacteria.  I don't know if it comes through the root system or not, but sounds like a likely area.

I've seen shake in all sorts of wood.  Some are more prone to it, like hemlock.  I've seen it in all the types of oak.  Sycamore quite often has it.  The hemlock I've sawn hasn't had a great deal of shake.  Generally, I can saw it out without too much volume loss.

Another thing you will see in wood is mineral.  I was told that mineral is also caused by bacteria.  Lumber buyers won't buy mineral lumber, although it isn't a defect.  I've been told it doesn't dry very well, and it often breaks into shake.  

[Tom]

Ron, you can add Cypress to that list.  It is one of the most confounding defects I run into in cypress, next to woodpecker holes. Both are quite common.

[Sawyerfortyish]

A lot of hemlock in my area is shook so bad it wont make anything even 1x2 slats. but it depends where you cut the trees if there protected in a valley or ravine there ok.   We cut one a while back 44" dia 350+ yrs old sawed out perfect no shake. We cut smaller trees in the same area full of shake one thing we noticed that most shook hemlock trees have fishers in the butt.We also cut some small trees 7-8" dia. that were 60 and 70 yrs old out of the way for the skid road. One would be shook and one next to it wasn't.
  Red Oak in our area is sometimes full of mineral but it depends ot the terrain good soil good oak rocks and ledges you get mineral never cut much sycamore other than for  blocking never had much use for it. The cherry in my area is all full of mineral in 22 yrs of logging and milling only had 2 or 3 trees we could sell for veneer. We have the worst cherry in the states I think!

[Bro. Noble]

Seems like elm is our worst species for shake.  We saw a lot of sycamore.  You can just about count on the older ones being shaky.  It is mostly in the heartwood.  If we cut a big shaky one that has a lot of sapwood, we take it in and make pallet boards from it.  Last fall we cut two huge ones that were growing at the edge of a bottom field.  They were only about 50 years old.  One made 15 ties and the other 11, plus a whole bunch of pllet lumber.  They were sound all through.
Sycamore is sure easy to log and saw, doesn't gum the blade of our resaw, and even smells good.

[Ron Scott]

My experience has been that the hemlock shake is primarily in the butt log. We leave the hemlock for vegetative diversity and wildlife thermal and escape cover as prescribed by the ecologists.

We seem to be slowly loosing the hemlock stands so any is retained for its ecosystem benefits.

[Sawyerfortyish]

All the hemlock Is dying from a disease in this area when you cut it down and it hits the ground there is a big cloud of white dust and under the boughs its coverd with a white dust like fungus. Can't think of the name of the disease right now . So when cutting hemlock we take everything that is sawable . I hate to see dead trees standing and going to waste. Within 2 or 3 years of dying the tree is no good for lumber.

[Ron Wenrich]

Are you sure it isn't wooly adelgid?  They are making the rounds in the hemlocks, and starting to kill quite a few.

I've seen fissures in several different species.  When I see them, I know there is a defect in that section of the tree.  Most often, it will come out as rot or shake.

As for the cherry, what you are getting is pitch streaks.  That isn't mineral, and it isn't supposed to be a defect.  It is caused by a peach borer.  

I talked to a veneer buyer, and he has seen stands that were thinned often have the pitch streaks.  Now they are finding that if you harvest your timber during the spring to summer, you are providing habitat for the peach borer.  That infects the residual stand.  It ends up being a case where the stand actually decreases in value, which is counterproductive to what we are supposed to be doing.

No one ever said that forestry was an exact science.  It takes more than an ability to scale timber.  

[woodmills1]

dare i say trees grow???
math is exact, science is not
dare i say trees grow???

[Sawyerfortyish]

Ron
Wooly Adelgid is exatly what the hemlocks have here so when we cut them we cut everything that has any timber value at all. As for our cherry your right about that to however we don't have stands of cherry just once in a while one tree by it self few and far between. Most grow on fence rows or in a back yard and are full of ants steel and pitch streaks or are so crooked you can't get more than 5 or 6' of straight log

[Ron Wenrich]

I see from your profile you're from New Jersey.  We saw quite a bit of New Jersey timber.  We can buy land and all for less than what the timber is worth.  Doing quite a bit of work around the Easton area.  

You can always tell those NJ drivers over here in PA.  They usually are doing 10-15 mph over the speed limit.  

I know what you mean about the cherry.  I've seen some nice stands of cherry down in Lancaster county and a few scattered trees.  For the most part, cherry doesn't get to be real nice until you hit the Appalachian plateau.

Usually fence row cherry is sweet cherry and not black.  Our gummy cherry we sell to the casket company.  They aren't as particular on those fancy pallets.

[Sawyerfortyish]

Ron is that forestry or logging or some other type work?
I'm north of Easton actually north of the Delaware water Gap kind of half way between there and Port Jervis N.Y.

[Ron Wenrich]

Kind of a combination of forestry and logging.  I haven't seen any of the jobs, so I can't comment on the quality of the management.

There is a forester who goes around NJ and PA and locates tracks of timber.  He then sells them to whoever wants to pay the most.  Sometimes he comes up with land and all.  I can never figure out why anyone in real estate (buyer or seller), never has an inventory and appraisal of the standing timber.    Values can be staggering.

The loggers use the land as a hunting reserve.  They get their kill in PA, and sometimes in NY.  Then they go down to NJ and get some more.  They came home with 7 deer the one day.  

[Sawyerfortyish]

Ron we have lots of deer doe season runs from Dec through the end of Feb and in my zone you can kill one a day! We can't grow anything  . We planted 8 acres of corn and it never got knee high  we can't grow alfalfa they pull it out by the roots and our garden looks like prison with 10' high  woven wire and electric fence I live 1/2 mile off the road and my wife and I have given up on planting flowers even the kind they aren't supposed eat when it's dry they eat everything

[Tom]

I have the same problem and have tried most everything from electric fence to human hair.  Nothing works.  One of the old swampers told me that there is only one way to control deer in the garden.  I got real excited.  

He said, "you hang a fresh hide on the fence every morning and they'll stop that".

It took me a minute but it finally came through.

[Bibbyman]

Deer damage to crops is a problem in our area but not to the point they destroy everything - maybe because this area has about 2/3 oak timber that produce acorns for them.  

The bigger problem is causing accidents on the highways.  More are killed on the highways than in the hunting season.   It varies from area to area as to season and limits but as farmers,  Mary, son and I could have taken about a 12 deer during the various seasons (archery, gun, and muzzleloader).  As it was, we took 8 total - giving three away.  7 were taken in one high traffic area of about 10 acres.  Although thousands were harvested in our county,  it was like taking a bucket of water out of a lake.

There are no place in the state where deer are in limited numbers.  The suburban areas and near urban areas have the highest concentration of deer and cause the most problems.

[Ron Wenrich]

Estimated highway kills for PA is 80,000.  Population estimate is 1.5 million.  I'm not sure of what the hunter kill is.

They are trying to raise the kill level.  They have just put doe and buck in at the same time and didn't get any extra hunters killed doing it.  

They are also trying to put pressure on killing more doe.  But, the hunters still remember when they were protected to increase the herd size.  Some guys still won't allow doe hunting on private property, and some guys will buy the doe tags, then not hunt.

Life expectancy for the buck is only a few years.  They are trying to do something in respect to rack size to allow bucks to live longer and have better breeding stock and more trophy buck.

We also have a problem with forest regeneration.  The Game Commission believes it is a deer problem, and the University believes it is an acid rain problem, thanks to Midwest power plants.  There are areas where they have to fence in harvested areas to keep the deer from killing the young trees.  1 deer per 5 acres will entirely wipe out regeneration.  Even grass won't grow.

[Norm]

The University folks should get their head out of their books and come visit the forest, we planted over 400 walnut and oaks last year. The deer ate 80% of them. Just when we get a walnut tree about 5-7 years old the bucks come in and scrape the bark off of them. The damage to the corn crops can be tremendous and the DNR sits on their thumbs telling us that we don't have a overpopulation problem. My best solution is my AR-15 but you'd run out of ammo before you made a dent in the herd. On the other hand this morning I was sitting at the computer reading foresty forum when a doe and twin fawns walked by my window that overlooks our pond. Makes it hard to stay mad at em.

[Sawyerfortyish]

We feel they are  killing to many deer here even though we can't grow anything it's always been easier to go to PA and get a load of corn instead of turning ground and picking rocks in the field for a week. 4or 5 yrs ago it wasn't anything to see 35 or 40 in a field now maybe you might see 10 or 12 we also stopped killing the spike bucks and have seen better size horns in the last 3or 4 years although most of our deer don't see 3 years old as someone put it we don't hunt our deer we harvest them