Burr oak or.....

[lmbrman]

20 - 30 miles North of me, the black oak starts and they are much smaller in size no matter how old they are. The black oak has little timber value unlike the Red and White oak.

Around here the white oak have lowest value, black oak and red oak pay the same. None are as nice as in your area.

Yes, I am man enough to admit you have nice wood.

 

[Erock]

another way to id Burr from Red is look at the smaller limbs. Burrs have deep rough old tree type looking bark even on the smaller limbs...

 

[mn woodcutter]

grain belt, I'm getting up to get a cold one right now....

 

[lindnova]

A 24" Bur Oak would be a "small" Bur Oak 'round here (about 70 miles south)... they don't get super tall as trees go, but the canopy is monster wide with huge branches.

You mean like this one. It is a monster probably over 600 yrs old - 12' dia. I love the old oaks. Good to hear from others that appreciate them.

I see a lot of 'in-the-woods' burr oaks also that grow quite tall with competition. I wish I could have seen our area before the brush and other trees took over the bare hills that had a few oaks scattered on. I love looking thru the rings and finding when there were fires. I have counted rings back and it seems that the trees grew slower in the 30's and faster in the 20's.

We are getting oak wilt or blight also. Those old trees aren't doing much reproducing as maple, hackberry and buckthorn are ruining their areas. I get a lot of oak from clearing construction sites. I should say salvage because I have seen many nice trees burned in piles just to get rid of. I use the dead ones for firewood also. Seems like a year or 2 after a dry year cause a few deaths as with other brush and tree competition it doesn't take much. 1989,2004,current.

I have some bur and white oaks planted in my yard so my great grandchildren can enjoy them.

 

[Preston]

Yeah, sounds like your ID book has a printing error or some-such.
The leaf you're describing sounds like (just guessin") one of the variants of the Southern Red Oak (quercus falcata), often called Spanish Oak...

 

[Preston]

The middle leaf is more like the ones I'm talking about. But the center part is even more narrow and longer. Still the same leaf. So it's a red oak?

 

[Whitespider]

So it's a red oak?

That/those pictures are of leafs from a Southern Red Oak (Spanish Oak), not from Northern Red Oak... two separate species.
Likely 999 times out of a thousand when someone mentions "Red" Oak on this board they're talkin' about the northern species.
The Northern Red Oak grows almost everywhere the Southern Red Oak does... but the opposite ain't true, the northern has a much larger range.

 

[mn woodcutter]

good info thanks to the Iowan spider!

 

[Preston]

That/those pictures are of leafs from a Southern Red Oak (Spanish Oak), not from Northern Red Oak... two separate species.
Likely 999 times out of a thousand when someone mentions "Red" Oak on this board they're talkin' about the northern species.
The Northern Red Oak grows almost everywhere the Southern Red Oak does... but the opposite ain't true, the northern has a much larger range.

Yeah, that's a lot like people too.

 

[mn woodcutter]

Quick question on Bur Oak..... how much time are you guys letting it dry after split before it's good to burn? It seems to dry much quicker than red oak.

 

[Whitespider]

Many times I've cut Bur Oak in January/February and had it all split 'n' stacked by April end... burned fine that next fall/winter, so 6months or so.
Although, admittedly, what does sit another year burns a little better... not a ton better... a little better.
Still... the size of the splits and where/how it's stack is gonna' have an impact. I stack in single rows, uncovered in the open... full sun and wind.
*

 

[ray benson]

The Bur Oak leaves around here look like these.
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/forestry/iowa_trees/trees/bur_oak.html
Haven't seen too many with this leaf - http://505829377853258931.weebly.com/oak-trees.html
There must be quite a variation in the leaves.

 

[lindnova]

The Bur Oak leaves around here look like these.
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/forestry/iowa_trees/trees/bur_oak.html
Haven't seen too many with this leaf - http://505829377853258931.weebly.com/oak-trees.html
There must be quite a variation in the leaves.

I agree with you. The IA state site shows what I know to be Bur oak leaves - even on their site and my experience they change some when younger and older, but not like the Indiana trees on the second site.

 

[066blaster]

I cut up a 36 bur oak and the bark must have been 6 inches thick at the high point of the ripples. And the tree had been dead a couple years so it all fell off when I split it. It was a big mess. Great firewood though.