Mold drying question?

[SawBilly]

I have some pine that is molding pretty bad...air drying. What is the difference between white mold and green mold. The white looks like it stays on the surface, acts as glue with the stickers. The green mold appears sub-surface, but not the same as blue stain.

Currently stacks are 3 feet wide, 3/4" x 1" (3/4 tall)stickers, 5 feet high. They are in an open field, with plywood and weight ontop.
The trees were cut in the late summer, which in Arkansas, it just started getting cold.
How do I stop the mold?

[Tom]

A 3 to 1 Water to chlorine bleach solution will kill it.   You will probably be best off to unstack it. The Green/black might be mildew and it will go deep if you don't stop it.  

[C_Miller]

Can the chlorine be put on before you see the mold/mildew form?
What conditions are "good for mold/mildew.

I recently started cutting a lot of Scots Pine and it turns fast! So I need to get a handle on this. Doesn't seem so bad that colder weather is on but oh thise summer nights!

Thanks

C

[SawBilly]

Tom, (or anyone else)
Do you think the stickers are of sufficent height, to allow enough air flow?

[Noble_Ma]

I was told that your stickers should be kiln (kill) dried too to help prevent mold.  I had one stack that molded pretty bad but I think the air flow wasn't enough.  I just dried some really wide stuff ( 14 to 20 ) and there was just bits of mold of a few boards.  The stack was 4' wide and 5' high.

[Tom]

The most important part of drying is air flow. That's why I try to keep my stacks 6' wide or less.  

Dry Stickers are important also.  I've dried construction pine on 1x1 green sticks and gotten away with it but it's not the best practice.  Allowing green to touch green is asking for trouble. That's why "dead stacking" for  more than a couple of days is asking for trouble too.  Have you seen folks dead stack a couple of 1x's  in a row of 2x's to fill out the row?  That'll get mold going quick.

I don't know that the sticks Have to be kiln dried, just dry.  I cut stickers ahead of time and try to kill any spores with a laundry bleach and dry them in my pole barn.  It doesn't take too long to air dry 1x1's and they stay dry enough under cover so that I usually have enough sticks. I guess if you cut up an old blue stained, fungus invested log for stickers you'd be asking for trouble too.

A fungicide put on the boards early will stop the mold and mildew by killing the spores. That's all the laundry bleach is doing. It can't hurt to put it on early but may not be necessary.

Once the stuff gets started, killing it with a fungicide and scrubbing or pressure washing is the only way I know to salvage it.  If you can dry it quickly, that will stop the growth too.  

The worse time I have with mold or fungus is when the wood is stacked under trees or out of a good air flow.  Too close to a wall or behind a building in a corner where a good flow of air is missing will provide a super garden for it to grow. Covering with a tarp just makes a green house.

I have played with sticker thickness some and it does make a difference.  I have slowed the drying of thin stock by using thin stickers and sped up the drying of posts by using thicker stickers but 1x1's do just about everything. The less contact surface the wood has, the better.   Think Air Flow

(Oh,  knock the sawdust off of the boards as you saw them too.  A layer of Sawdust acts like a sponge and makes a good "seed bed" for stain causing organisms.)