Cut when felled, or let 'em sit?

[Joseph Acquisto]

I'm occasionally have dropped and cut up my own trees. Getting ready to do it again.

A former neighbor with a lot of experience felling and heating with wood, once told me that if dropping a leafed out tree, best thing was to drop it and let it sit till the leaves dried up and browned, then cut it up and it would be pretty much ready to burn. The idea being most of the moisture would pass out via the leaf system.

Said it would take twice as long to season, into next year, if you cut it up right away, even if split.

True or tale?

 

[Dennisthemenace]

Cut it while it's clean and green, and hopefully some of it is off the ground, held up by limbs. In a year it will be drier but probably sunk in the dirt. I reckon anyway

 

[ElevatorGuy]

False, if it’s a hardwood it’s going to take about 2 years to dry either way. Cut,
Split and stack in the sun with good airflow to dry properly. Leaves on won’t do jack.

 

[trains]

Interesting, never heard that before, I only wait for the leaves to dry off, as its an indicator that the timber is moving away from the really wet gummy stage, and thus the timber is still soft to cut, but wont gum up your chain, and hopefully the termites have not started to show interest in the timber, so your not running thru mud trails on each cut.
At least with Euc's anyway.

I would not have thought the leaves were so good at moving out the moisture from a trunk, just thought that happened by itself, not via the leaf system when dead.
For best drying, nothing beats cutting, spiltting and stacking, covered with good ventilation, with our hardwoods, you get an inch a year for proper seasoning with dense hardwood.

 

[ericm979]

In a live tree the leaves get water from the roots through the trunk (we'll ignore trees like coast redwood that get significant water via absorbition by specialized leaves).

The water travels to the leaves through the sap wood layer, which is the most recent few years of wood growth inside the bark and cambuim. So if there is significant drying it'd only be in the outer layers of wood. The water in the heartwood is not going anywhere.

Personally I have not seen any noticeable drying of trees once felled, no matter how long they lay there. They just rot eventually. It's only when cut split and stacked that significant drying happens.

 

[OM617YOTA]

I cut when I have time. The wood can season on it's own time, without my direct input.

 

[striperswaper]

for firewood I drop, cut, and split in the winter. stacked as soon as possible. it is burnable the next winter but I'm usually a year or two ahead

 

[BrettS]

Only one way to find out, cut and drop two of the same type trees, let one sit with the leaves still on it and turn brown and cut, split and stack the other. Whichever one is dry wins.

 

[Sierra_rider]

Some of my own trees, I'll just drop and let them lie for a little while. I do it for the opposite reason, it seems like the trunk pulls moisture back from the limbs, and the limbs are more readily available to burn sooner.

If I drop a pine in winter time and immediately limb it, the limbs will hold their moisture for the duration of winter and be a PITA to burn in slash piles w/o a liberal application of accelerants. If I leave them attached after dropping the tree, within a couple of weeks they've wilted and burn in piles quite easily.

 

[cookies]

I like cutting them up after felling and leaving the rounds for 30-60 days in a pile in the sun then busting it into pieces tossed into another pile left for another 30-60 days and then stacking. Leave the stacks away from things in the sun so air will pass over it when the wind blows for at least 3-4 months until its got a minimum 1/4 of a inch into it dry then cover with a tarp. Check every 3 days for a month, if it has condensation pull the tarp for another 30 days unless rain is likely. Its a lot of work but I can dry hardwoods split 3-4 inches thick in a year. The trick is knowing your dry months and rainy months and playing the tarp fairy as needed.

 

[trains]

Regarding dropping trees and letting them lay, I have found that if a tree is dead, it will still absorb moisture from the ground via capillary action, so even years old grey dead wood, if sitting in soil where there has been rainfall, will absorb that moisture, some limbs that are further away from the ground will be drier, lower moisture.
Typically, I find dead laying wood around the 25 to 30% moisture, even if its been there years and years, no bark etc, if ants have made mud trails into it, then the moisture goes up as they bring that in with them via the mud.

We had a few years of drought, and one dead bough, no bark and no rot, and 60ft long, 20" dia at end laying on the ground, I got to cut up half of it, and it was near zero moisture after the summer, many months later, after we had had rainfall, I went back to finish off the rest of it, and the outer area of the log had gone back up from 4% moisture to 25% or 30% due to it absorbing the available moisture in the soil it was laying on, those bits that were stacked off the ground, were still dry.

Dead trees that are still standing will absorb moisture and have a high moisture content, even tho dead, not obviously like a living tree, but its still up at a good 30% or more.
Again, some trees just rot and fall down after dieing, most of our Euc's just die, loose leaves, and bark, and then go rock hard and slowly shed limbs, only way to season them correctly is to cut split and stack with airflow, must be great to be able to cut and burn with a shorter seasoning time like some of you can, but then I guess, that wood is not as dense, nor burn as long or as hot as what we mess with.

 

[TRTermite]

Had a friend of My cousin call me late one night ,, He Thought I had all the answers. He had a Woodmiser mill and was trying to do everything perfect. He asked if the lumber would dry better if he cut it in "The Dark of the MOON"? I managed (I Hope) to keep a serious voice and told him some trees are known for bigger rootballs like Hackberry and Mulberry, but if you are comparing them to taters, when you dig them isn't as important as when you plant them.

 

[Bill G]

Had a friend of My cousin call me late one night ,, He Thought I had all the answers. He had a Woodmiser mill and was trying to do everything perfect. He asked if the lumber would dry better if he cut it in "The Dark of the MOON"? I managed (I Hope) to keep a serious voice and told him some trees are known for bigger rootballs like Hackberry and Mulberry, but if you are comparing them to taters, when you dig them isn't as important as when you plant them.

Come on now your making fun of the Farmers Almanac aren't ya Some folks have some odd ideas based on moon phases, The man that was murdered here and li worked this farm before me was a big believer in moon phases, We could not cut (castrate) pigs if the moon phase was not right. He was odd but a damm good man and I miss him greatly with all his ideas

 

[Bill G]

A former neighbor with a lot of experience felling and heating with wood, once told me that if dropping a leafed out tree, best thing was to drop it and let it sit till the leaves dried up and browned, then cut it up and it would be pretty much ready to burn. The idea being most of the moisture would pass out via the leaf system.

Said it would take twice as long to season, into next year, if you cut it up right away, even if split.

True or tale?

Well simply FALSE. I prefer to address issues from a scientific aspect but hell in this case lets look at it from a practical standpoint. If what he said was true then heck al logging should go on in the summer months and let the logs :dry al natural" There would be no reason to kiln dry lumber if what he told you was true. Lets take a look at this from a scientific standpoint how is all the water in a 36" trunk going to escape through leaves. It did not enter that way did it?

 

[Colonel428]

I agree. Complete rubbish about letting the felled trees sit. Cut and split them right away, then they start to dry and become firewood.

 

[Bill G]

I agree. Complete rubbish about letting the felled trees sit. Cut and split them right away, then they start to dry and become firewood.

Of course so. It is amazing how some folks want to ignore simple science. The VAST majority of water enters through the root system. Once that is severed the only way to remove it is exposure to air and heat. Common facts not :spooky science" You have to blow or cook the water out.

Now that DOES NOT mean you cannot burn green wood. It does burn. The majority of what I burn is cut and tossed directly in the boiler. I am not saying what I do is the smartest decision but just what I do. I have cut and left logs to dry, They rot quickly, As noted especially Red Oak, The exception is Locust and Hedge (osage orange) which just get harder as it lays. I passed by a heavy leaning Cherry this winter along one of my field edges. I cut alone and it was going to be one I would prefer a spotter on. Well mother nature decided to drop a good portion of it in the beans so now I have to cut it. If not she will be rotten soon

 

[muddstopper]

I can only offer an opinion based on my experience. I have cut many a green tree down and left to lay for an extended period of time. I do believe that leaving the limbs on the tree with all its leaves does speed up the drying process. Yes, if you leave the tree laying for a year or more, it will rot, but that aint what I do. Cut the tree and let the leaves wilt and the wood will be dryer than it would if you cut the tree and immediantly bucked the wood. You can actually see the water run out of the butt of the tree. I am not saying that if the wood is bucked and stacked it wont dry quicker than the wood left laying on the ground, its a fact the more surface area of the tree that is exposed to the air, the quicker it will dry. You want fast drying times, cut it, split it and stack off the ground and it will dry much faster than whole trees or even trees that have been bucked but left sitting on the ground. If you want really fast drying times, cut, split and stack beside your burning wood stove, that will suck the water out.

 

[Bill G]

We all have different ideas based on real life experience. There is no way to honestly say who is right or wrong. That is because we do what works for us. I will tell you the way I cut wood is NOT THE BEST. I will say simple science says fell it, buck it, split it, stack it, WAIT then BURN THAT WOOD

 

[jellyroll]

I process the same day the tree has been felled so i don't have to do it later.

 

[Bill G]

I process the same day the tree has been felled so i don't have to do it later.

I assume your mill is next door