I was curious to see if anyone has ever milled a "girdled" tree. From my research, a tree gets girdled and it takes it a couple of years to die. During the dying of the tree, it slowly and naturally dries. If anyone has done this, I was just wondering if it mills differently, If it is any better doing it this way (girdling) compared to felling and milling right away, or felling, left to dry for a year or so and then milling? Thanks for any replies.
I did a TSI project on some woodland I owned. One of the requirements was that I girdle all honey locust trees and spray with herbicide. After the honey locust had been dead for a couple of years I felled all of the bigger ones and sawed the lumber. Worked just fine but this is the only species I ever tried. There was only slight degrade.
On a normal basis, I prefer to mill asap after a living tree is felled. I think in general one gets the best lumber this way.
Haven't milled any yet. Will be interested to see the results here. My grandfather used to work girdling cypress in Fla. When dead they would be felled and floated out at high water. That was why they wanted them dead and dry - to float better.
I haven't sawed girdled trees but I have found that standing dead elm and hackberry behave much better than green when being air dried.
Ive sawn a good bit of southern yellow pine that was effectively girdled by the pine bark beetle eating the cambium bark layer around the base of the tree, effectively girdling the tree. Cut as a standing dead tree, if you saw it soon after death, the wood is good. Magic Man has cut close to a million board feet of it.
Sawing dead white ash killed by EAB mills fine. Does tend to leave sap on blade. Lumber seems to be more stable than fresh green ash lumber.
Yup Pineywoods, that is what I was thinking as I read this thread. After I finish sawing the ERC, I have 23 SYP trees to saw that were girdled by Pine Beetles.
Thanks for the replies Gents.
I was just thinking about this last night as I was dropping another bug killed Grand Fir. Maybe I should change the name of my operation to Last Chance Lumber. Final chance for these trees to become lumber before fire wood. Maybe a marketing slogan for sawmill manufactures.
There was a real bug infestation three summers ago. Most would normally make it through but has record dry year last summer. This spring most had needles turn orange when they came out of dormant. May be a good thing. Those that do heal give that surprise of a separated growth ring right in the best part of the log. Hard to make good lumber from that.