Growing your own firewood?

[irishcountry]

I stumbled onto this website frysvillefarms.com check it out and throw in your 2 cents does it look like it might work out for some people? It looks interesting to me but I have never burned poplar and can't imagine it burns real slow or hot. I suppose if you planted double it wouldn't matter just mean more trips. Thanks for any input/wisdom

 

[jerseydevil]

Seems like a reasonable thing to do. I would check into better trees. I know time is a big factor here.
consider:
I have burned lots of tulip poplar and it is ok if free. What could it hurt to try, if you have the space.
What do they charge per tree? Seems you could take tons of clippings from the first years crop.
:monkey:

 

[cjcocn]

Poplar burns quick, produces fairly little heat (I think it's about 14.x BTUs), and produces a lot of ash.

The main firewood around here (that I go for) is jack pine and birch. As long as there is another choice I will pass on the poplar. I cut about 6 cords out of our front yard and tried to burn it this winter, but switched to jack pine and still have a cord of poplar left. I will likely move it to the fire pit this summer.

If wood was that scarce I would probably quit growing hay and start growing poplar on my little patch of land (40 acres), but I would hold off on that decision for as long as possible.

4 years is a pretty quick turn-around time for firewood, but I am not sure how many "crops" one could get before the land would have to be worked up and stumps removed. With the stump removal and amount of firewood needed for so few BTUs, I would have to be pretty desperate to make the decision to grow poplar for firewood (I would probably first try and access the existing poplar).

HTH

 

[windthrown]

Many fast-growing trees are lighter and lower in heat value. Poplar is about the same as cottonwood and willow, and I only burn them if we are cutting it down on the property here or if it is windthrow. I would not grow it for fuel, and it is not marketable here for timber.

Around here red alder grows almost as fast, and it is a money tree. I can get $800/MBF for it at the mill right now, even in this crappy timber market, which is higher than Doug fir right now. It is also a better firewood than poplar, stabilizes stream banks and wet areas as a tree, and makes a great charcoal and wood stove cooking fuel. It also splits fairly easilly, and smells good when burned. It also burns nice and evenly in the fireplace. We also burn a lot of windthrown alder in the OWB here. I have planted a lot of alders in the past 3 years. Only bad things about alder is that it tends to die out in sections, tends to split when felling, and leaves a lot of red colored juice on your saw when felling.

 

[dakotatrees]

Wood is fairly scarce around here, so I've looked at growing my own and have planted Black Cherry and I'm looking at planting Osage Orange. Neither grows as fast as Poplar and Cottonwood, but I think they'll be worth the extra years. With the wind we have here, the soft Cottonwood and Poplar don't always fare that well.

 

[flewism]

I don't know anything about frysvillefarms, but I have over 300 hybrid poplars on my property. I bought them about 6 years ago to be the first stage of a windbreak on the western edge of our home. I bought them from the Monroe county soil conservation dept. for like $55 per hundred. They grow like weeds I have some 25' tall, most are 16' to 20' and 4" to 5" at the base. I do not consider these trees firewood. If I harvested all of them for firewood I'd have 300 poles 6' long 2" to 3" at one end and 4" to 5" at the other and a whole lot of mulch.

 

[windthrown]

Well, in the marketing and advertizing world, that would be firewood!

We thin a lot of firs here that size and cut them up and burn them in the OWB. The tops amd limbs all go into burn piles. No time for chipping all that into mulch, and I sold the Brush Bandit anyway.

 

[irishcountry]

thanks for the input I will do some more research I know they aren't great on BTU's I think its like 17 or 18 and Oak being 34 or so just kinda interesting system too bad there is no oak or ash that gets that big in 4 years!!! Keep the comments coming!

 

[sredlin]

seems like a waste of land to cultivate poplar