Honey Locust (the one with thorns)

[wesdor]

I have several rather large honey locust growing on the farm and have stayed away from them since their thorns can flatten the tires on my tractor.

Is there any way to safely fell these trees and not have thorns all over the ground?  I think locust makes reasonable firewood and maybe even some useable lumber.  I just don't want to have flat tires due to my stupidity.  Hoping someone has the secret to safely harvesting honey locust

[Southside]

It dose make beautiful lumber, about the only way I can think of to reduce potential lost thorns would be to snap or cut them off the trunk before felling the tree. 

[Larry]

I had a lot of honey locust in my woodlot and my timber stand improvement plan called for getting rid of all of them.

Besides the thorns, HL will easily stump sprout after you cut one down and that creates a real mess.  My solution was to ring the tree twice just through the bark with a chainsaw.  Than I squirted herbicide from a little bottle into the cuts.  The tree died quickly and within a couple of years the bark and thrones fell off.  They quickly disappeared. After that I cut the tree down as I normally would.

Doing it this way their was a little degrade in lumber quality and quantity but not much.  The tree tops made good firewood.  Took five years but I completely eliminated HL from my woodlot.

[wesdor]

Thanks Larry, 

I'll try to ring a couple of the big trees and give them time. Small amount of degrade is not a big problem - I have lots of firewood available. My biggest hope is to get rid of these weed trees.

[hedgerow]

Ringing them and using Tordon or K-22 is the way to handle them. Had one farm that had a bunch of thorn Locust on it. Took some years but we got them gone. Farm backs up to a state game, lake and they don't take care of them and the deer eat the seeds and plant them in my fields. There doing the best to make a come back. No till farming is good but sometimes the trees try to take over. 

[Brad_bb]

Younger trees seem to have a lot more thorns.  If I had to, I'd cut them with an axe or machete before felling the tree.  and put a tarp or drop cloth below to catch them and then burn them in my burn barrel.  That extra work would only be worth it if I wanted to mill the wood for lumber.  Hardly worth the effort for firewood, unless you need to get rid of the trees anyway.

[fenris]

I think the locust we have here is called black locust, but I could be wrong. 

I deliberately let them live and use the new ones that sprout up as handles. I cut them and watch the sprouts. After 2-3 years they're about the size I need to rehandle my pawpaws hand tools. I treat them with Lindseed oil. Seems like a long lasting wood but it cracks when it dries. It's more trouble than it's worth I'm just weird. 

[Magicman]

Deer eat the sweet pods and spread the seed everywhere.

The absolute best solution is to rid yourself of it....however possible.

[doctorb]

You can go back 20 years in the FF and I can assure you Magic has always despised honey locust.  Consistency is a virtue.

[KEC]

Around here most of the Honey Locust was planted and thornless. But when its' seeds sprout the new trees will have thorns. I have not seen where any critters were eating the seeds or pods. I rate it as good firewood.

[Southside]

Magic Man loves it as much as he loves Sweet Gum.  :D

[doc henderson]

 

 

 

 

not bad lumber.  14-foot table expands to 24 feet.  the legs are together and look massive, but really split in two when expanded.  Good German Baptist family, Tree guy.

[Treeflea24]

I've been methodically removing them for the last few years and here's what I have learned:
I tried girdling them and treating them with herbicide. This works to kill the tree. The next thing that happens is that over the next 4-5 years it will drop its limbs and thorns all around itself. These branches are brittle and send thorns everywhere once they land. These do not disappear (or at least mine havent yet) and you can still get flats from these.
If you girdle low and skip the herbicide, or cut them off and dont treat the stumps, the deer around here (we are overpopulated with them) will eat the sprouts, and often eventually kill the tree.
When I am removing one from a place nearby to where I intend to drive/ride/mow/use anything with pneumatic tires, my best practice has been to cut it as it stands (alive). I'll use the chainsaw to knock off the thorns around the trunk where I'll make the hinge cut. Drop it in the direction that will put the least amount of thorns near your trail. Then limb it out and make a big nasty pile of thorns. If the tree is alive when it drops, it doesnt tend to scatter as many thorny branches. Treat the stump with 25-40% glyphosate, none of mine have ever survived this.

Here they tend to grown in stands. In many cases I will pick a spot and try to land every tree in the stand on top of it to make a pile. These piles burn well the next season, and with a bit of managing you can get most of the thorns burnt and gone. Ive never messed with bucking them into firewood for the stove.

Make sure you have thick gloves, eye protection and tough boot soles.

Before I went totally down the warpath on removing these, I removed the thorns from the trunks of a few where the trees were next to a trail that we ride motorcycles on, with the thought that it'd be a less dangerous thing to ride around in case you left that trail and got into the tree. The thorns grew back bigger and meaner than they had been before.

I now have solid tires in the front of the mower that I use on the trails around here. I also have a gallon of tire slime, multiple spare tire tubes in several sizes, and a lot of experience with tire changing and tube patching. Dog's paws are another place that I have pull HL thorns out of.

Here's a photo of the most secure nesting cavity on the property...

[Sod saw]

.


Doc,  Did you make that table yourself?  It is wonderful.  

Someone must have spent a lot of time matching and keeping track of pieces for a 24 foot long table.


.

[doc henderson]

I must have been in a hurry when posting.  It is an example of how many underappreciated woods can be beautiful.  Like Elm and cottonwood here in the great state of Ks.  I milled the log for a tree guy buddy named Sean.  He and his family home school and are German Baptist.  Live in the country.  the boys have been doing tree work since a young age.  He built the table.  We kept the boards, in order and thus able to book match.  You can see all the leaves in the background.  he is the one that bought a used mill and modified it to be wider and milled the walnut burl for me.  



 

 

his son it the one that tangled with the jointer and lost, waited and had surgery the next day, and helped us mill the burl the day after that.  



 

 

honest good hardworking family.

[KEC]

That hurts just looking at it !

[jhellwig]

I don't have it too bad here but have several young black locust.  The goats love to peel the bark off of them.  They will probably do the same to the honey locust also.  When I go to cut them down I knock the thorns off with the hatchet and saw.  Don't kneel down or reach under any of them.  The thorns come off easily so not a big deal if you wear leather gloves.