Big hearts

[Sawyerfortyish]

I'm cutting a maple job right now(I know I should wait til fall but the land owner wants it done now) What I'm finding is that the smaller diameter trees 16"-22"dbh have more clear white hearts than the bigger trees. The bigger trees seem to have a lot more big hearts. Is the bigger hearts from the tree being older? Or is a coincidence that the big trees I've cut so far are just big hearted. I know that type of terrain and soil probably have a lot to do with this. Just wondering what everyone else has noticed about this.

[OLD_ JD]

what i find out over here is doesn't realy matter the size of the tree's,i cut small maple whit big hearts,so as huge one whit small hearts....i know it soud wierd :-\

[Ron Wenrich]

Sounds like a 2 age stand.  The big ones grew under the overstory and were released at an old age.  The smaller ones came from seedlings at the same cut and have a better growth rate, and don't have as much sapwood.

That's my theory. 

[Sawyerfortyish]

Ron from what i'm told it was logged 20 years ago. I can see the stumps and what left of some tops. Cut about a dozen maples today one had butt damage and had a big brown heart another had about a 3" heart the rest was real nice  8)

[SwampDonkey]

Tree age and life history (competition, release) are a big factor. In my area most maple over 14 inches have at least half heart. A 14 inch maple growing without management intervention is at least 120 years old up here. I've seen tons of the stuff go into the pulp wood grinder. Keep in mind we are on the extreme northern range of hard maple in NW New Brunswick and our winters are harsh.

[4str]

I know this is an aging post, but no one has nailed it yet (though several are close). Having just sold over 50 mbf (Doyle) in trees averaging 500 bdft/tree (yes, that's not a typo - some ran over 1 mbf /tree) and watching the buyers struggle mightily with the question, I thought I'd jump in.

Maples DO NOT have heartwood! What we commonly refer to as "big hearts" and "mineral stain" are actually colloquialisms for an advancing column of discoloration / decay caused by bacteria and or fungi that gained entrance through a wound - usually in the tree's crown, but it could be in the roots as well.

It's not tree diameter but crown position you should be looking at. Here in New York over 70% of our stands are even-aged (all trees got started at about the same time and are roughly the same age - so the really big ones are no older than the small ones). The larger diameter trees are usually dominants (i.e., their crowns are "head and shoulders" above those of their contemporaries) and are much more exposed to potentially damaging forces such as wind and ice that the codominants and intermediates and are more likely to have experianced such damage than the smaller (i.e., shorter) trees whose crowns offer some degree of mutual protection.

Root wounds also offer potential entry points for disease causing organisms and are commonly created after logging in saturated soils. Of course, just plain rough logging in the past can create plenty of wounds, as can a forester marking a previously uncut or otherwise over-stocked stand without giving much thought to where the trees will fall and providing the logger with a few "holes" or "lanes" in which to drop the trees so as to cause the least amount of residual stand damage.

Sorry for the length, but next time you evaluate a maple stand, look at the trees crown position, the slope and aspect (degree of exposure) of the site, evidence of past crown damage and, if it has been previously logged, who did it and when (season). With a little careful observation and a little practice, your colleagues will think you have X-ray vision.  ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Hi 4str, welcome aboard the forum. I agree that tree injury is a major factor of 'heart', but age and suppression are as well. Also, I do realize that codominants have less incidence of heart, aside from being injured, than suppressed trees as well. When one has to work with hardwood up north here and then go down south and see the quality of hardwood being managed it can spoil ya right quick. ;D Also, ya have to realize the history of harvesting and management here, the government treated hardwood as weed species here for decades. It's only been the last 10 years or so that the hardwood market for sawlog and veneer has taken off. Before that it was 99 % used as pulp. Even today the volume of wood used as sawlog and veneer is less than 5 % in this province. We just don't have the quality. In fact if you went to the lot that alot of this veneer was cut from it was either clearcut or high graded. I'm always baffled by some far off company in the US wanting to come way up here to buy veneer. The volume isn't here, distance is great and it just isn't being managed for that market by the majority. In this kneck of the woods no corner is unscaved by harvesting and other management. You can travel here on back country roads and say to yourself the growth here is quite small, well that's because it's been cut. Simply because the economy here depends on it and it's especially true for the farming community. If bills need to be payed the woodlot gets whacked. ;) For comparison, I've been in some areas of Virginia where there isn't a sawmill or logging truck in sight. There growing houses instead of harvesting and milling trees. ;D

Ok, that's enough for now. ;D

[Ron Wenrich]

Sorry, I just can't leave a statement like "Maples DO NOT have heartwood" stand unchallenged.  All trees have heartwood, after a certain age.  In hard maple, that comes about at 40-50 years of age.

As a tree ages, the xylem cells become less conductive and physiologically active.  The sapwood has some living cells, and the heartwood has no living cells.  As a tree ages, the interior cells get further away from the oxygen source and die. 

There are secondary occurances in the heartwood that will give it its color, and other similar properties.  Most often that is caused by oxidation and polymerization of phenols.  Those extractives form in heartwood. 

Maple doesn't normally have a visible heartwood, but does get false heartwood, which is colored.  That is what you have described with the fungi and other factors.

In this neck of the woods, sugar maple has normally been overtopped through much of its lifespan.  It hasn't been much of a major species since the '60s, so they were just left in the understory.  When the big oak markets came on, many stands were high graded of oak and released the maple.  Most often they were surpressed trees that are now dominant.  They still would probably have a colored false heart due to past history of surpression.

[SwampDonkey]

;D Ron, I figured you were greater equipped to answer to the challenge than I. ;D :D

I know if someone made that claim up here he wouldn't be too popular with loggers, log buyers and forest products marketing board staff. ;D

[Frickman]

Welcome aboard 4str! I'll defer to Ron and Swampdonkey on this one, as their training is in forestry and mine was in economics, when to harvest the trees. Hope you enjoy your time here.

[4str]

Thanks for the welcome.

Ron's got it just about right. What I should have said is that "Maples DO NOT have true heartwood.

In (mostly but not exclusively) ring-porous species such as black cherry, red oak, and black walnut, true heartwood forms as a result of chemical change that follows normal aging processes in the wood cells as Ron describes.  But in most diffuse-porous species such as the maples, birches, beech (and some ring-porous species such as ash), the darker wood is not true heartwood in this sense: it is a result of discoloration processes initiated by injury (i.e., "false heartwood").

A cross-section of an ideally healthy sugar maple tree would show a pencil-thin cylinder of pith in the center of the stem, surrounded by unblemished white wood.  But what we've been discussing here is a core of darker wood, of varying diameter (but that does not increse as the tree grows), surrounded by white wood.  The pattern of the discolored wood will depend upon what has happened to the tree: when the branches died, how fast it healed its wounds; what logging wounds it had; and how much injury was done to it by insects, fire, birds, animals, or other agents.

Tree age and suppression would not have a direct effect on these "false hearts", but could effect their formation indirectly by weakening the tree so that it was more susceptible to insects, birds, animals, etc.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Ron Wenrich]

I'm not trying to beat on you, but it seems you still don't quite have it right.  All trees will develop true heartwood.  Its a physiological condition where the xylem no longer is alive.  It takes a little longer on some species as others.  It is possible to have no heartwood if you are cutting young trees of certain species.

Some heartwoods have no distinct color change, such as hard maple.  But, a false heartwood may develop.  I can agree with your assessment as to why it does.  It may not be in all cases.

Whether or not it is ring porous or diffuse porous is not the defining factor of heartcolor.  Its the extractives that form or don't form in heartwood from the oxidation of the phenols.  I wouldn't classify cherry as a ring porous wood, based on its heartwood/sapwood color. 

White ash does not always have a distinct color change from heartwood to sapwood, and that is a definite ring porous wood.

[4str]

That's ok Ron, I don't feel like you're beating on me. I also think we're saying the same thing, but using different definitions for some of our terms.  I think the statement below demonstrates this:

All trees will develop true heartwood.  Its a physiological condition where the xylem no longer is alive.  It takes a little longer on some species as others.

I agree with you that all trees will develop heartwood. But I think we're using the term "true" differently.

I use the definitions of "true" and "false" heartwood proffered by Alex Shigo in his CODIT (Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees) model. He coined these terms to differentiate between  trees in which color was a naturally occuring phenomenon based, as you say, on the extractives that form in the heartwood from the oxidation of phenols (i.e., "true" heartwood) and those in which color is the result of injury or damage (i.e., "false" heartwood).

So, while all trees will develop heartwood, some will develop "true" heartwood, others "false" heartwood and some will have no color in their heartwood at all (at least not that can be easily distinguished with the naked eye).

Whether or not it is ring porous or diffuse porous is not the defining factor of heartcolor.

I didn't mean to imply it was. It's just a fact that "true" heartwood - as defined above - just happens to occur amost exclusively in ring-porous species like cherry, walnut, and red oak.  As a rule, diffuse-porous species, like maples, don't generally develop color in their heartwood by the same process. In these species, color in heartwood is almost exclusively the result of damaging agents. It's an interesting correlation I'm describing rather than a causal factor.

I wouldn't classify cherry as a ring porous wood, based on its heartwood/sapwood color.

I wouldn't either. I would classify it as such based on its cellular structure.

White ash does not always have a distinct color change from heartwood to sapwood, and that is a definite ring porous wood.

That's what I said.

As I said earlier, we seem to be in agreement on basic principles, but we're using different definitions of "true" and "false" heartwood. I should have begun by defining my terms.

I hope this clears things up.

[SwampDonkey]

Not to nitpick here but....

I didn't mean to imply it was. It's just a fact that "true" heartwood - as defined above - just happens to occur amost exclusively in ring-porous species like cherry, walnut, and red oak.  As a rule, diffuse-porous species, like maples

Cherry is actually 'semi-ring pourous', but leans more toward diffuse porous, like birch. source: Textbook of wood technology You'd have to admit walnut and oak is alot more ring pourous than cherry, you don't even need a handlens. ;)

[OneWithWood]

This has become an excellent post.  I have learned a lot without having to do much research.  Thanks to all of you for your reasoned responses and for stating your sources.

Ain't this forum the greatest  8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[Ron Wenrich]

Using the same book as Swamp.

I think a lot of problems come about by calling one thing a true heartwood and the other a false heartwood.  True heartwood has nothing to do with color, where false heartwood does.  False heartwood is only present in trees that have normally colorless hearts, which is what 4ster is saying.

There is also wound heartwood.  That is dead cells caused by a wound and usually has a differing color. 

[Sawyerfortyish]

I'm still cuttin this stand and i'm almost done. I got real busy at my mill so it's taken longer that I thought it would. I can tell you a little more now since i've sold most of the better butts. Something about 20-25 yrs ago has created a small blemish in most of the trees. Its very noticeable after it was pointed out by a veneer buyer in the maple. I seen what they were talking about when I sawed some big low grade oak logs. It goes up the tree and can be seen in the low grade logs in the tops. It is a discolored group of growth rings. Now that I've had time to look around in this woods I think the cause of this was when it was logged last time. Whoever logged it about 20-25 yrs ago must have had a huge skidder or was very reckless with a skidder they damaged most remaining trees in some way or another . Judging from the tops and stumps left it must have looked like a clearcut in some areas . That left it wide open for the small maples to take off. Thats what i'm now cutting. Most of the maple trees 99% are clear white all the way to the center witha small heart a lot times no bigger than a golf ball and are that way even up into the third log in the tree. My biggest problem is that blemish that is in most of the logs but not all of them. It might be  skidder dammage but not sure I also thought maybe it might be Gypsy moth dammage as the blemmish resembles what a tree with insect dammage looks like in the butt. Anyway I'm glad I bid carfully on this job or I might have lost my @ss The way the log market is around here.

[SwampDonkey]

We have some streak in maples that were tapped with aluminum spiles. No good for veneer. That will travel up the tree.

[Ron Wenrich]

I've cut lots of moth damage, and have never seen anything out of the ordinary.  You might get a false growth ring due to a releaf of the tree.

I took a cookie in for a 5th grade class one time to explain the effects of various things on an oak tree.  I could show where the stand was thinned out and I could show where there was a gypsy moth defoliation.  It helped knowing when the moth moved through.