The Forestry Forum

I have a woods full of American Hornbeam (Iron Wood)...And I would LIKE to use the stuff for fence posts. I get different answers relative to its resistance to rot...Will it survive as fence posts? If not is there a way to treat the wood to increase service life to the point of being usefull as fence posts??

I have tried it and it tends to be brittle and snap.

Stonebroke

Any Atlantic or northern white cedar in the area? There are old cedar rail fences here over 100 years old. If they are gone it's because there was a craze back a few years ago to use them for kindling wood. Dad burnt up all the old rails on his 6 farms.  ::) But I have a white cedar fence post by my well for the breather hose that comes up. It's been there 40 years at least.  ;D

The wood is hard, but I don't think that it is unusually rot resistant.

I have lots of it also. Does not last long with ground contact. Makes great firewood though. Splits easy, never gets real big and one of the highest heat woods you will find. Produces lots of mast so will probably reseed itself without much problem. Actually kind of hard to eliminate it. Good wildlife tree really.

It can take over the understory of a sugar bush real quick when you do crown releases of your maples.  ::)

It's a "one year" fence post.  Go ahead and burn it.

Noticed you are in CNY, in WNY we use black locust.  Fence posts of black locust with the bark removed will last over 50 years.