The Forestry Forum

Is this a white oak. I was told it was a white oak. But the lumber I cut from it was a little different from other white oak trees I have cut. This tree was at the edge of a lake, and it blew over during a big storm in 2017, I cut it up a few weeks after the storm. One thing that I noticed right off is how horrible it smelled. It was very bad!!! Each time I cut or planed a board from this tree I knew it!! The other thing about this tree is half of the wood I couldn't use because it kept checking, but different than I usually see. It wasn't a crack up the middle of the board. It would consistently crack along the age rings of the tree. Was it a white oak? Was it something different? Was there something wrong with the tree, or did I do something wrong?
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Sure looks like wo. Wo has a lot of smell. Wouldn't call it bad smell. It just smells like - - white oak.

Maybe yours had a disease or was wind shook. Not typical to check like that.

I don't mind the smell of cutting white oak or red oak. But this tree stunk!!! Could it have be that the tree was right next to the pond, and growing from stinky pond water? Maybe? But I find it strange how half of the boards from this tree was unusable trash from all the checking? It seemed this tree had a unusual out of round shape and lots of knots. I just want to avoid cutting a tree like this one again. 

Sounds like a bacterial infection.  I have seen it in red oak and the wood stinks, and it basically honeycombs and falls apart when drying.  It is also quite a bit darker than expected in the ones I have seen.  

And usually that causes ring shake that works its way up from the bottom, you can often look for black rings and keep bucking off firewood pieces till you get above the infection.