Cutting dead Elm.

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alleyyooper

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I have several dead Elm on the property we bought last year. Much of it is really limbie I call it because there is a lot of good fire wood size limbs.

Not a real good picture but I cut this one down a week ago, have taken 4 bucket loads out so far and have several more to go. If the rain would stop I could finish it quick.



Right behind the right rear tire.



It isn't a question of is it going to rain today but when is it going to rain today?

I have some really deep ruts in there now. Most likely be able to trout fish in them soon.

I have trimed some of the branches off one of them while it is standing.

I still have a few standing dead Ash to drop and cut up yet also.



:D Al
 
:laughing: I pay no attention to BTU charts, same with the crazy for fondleing fire wood to no end :eek:.
If it burns and I've cut it, I burn it. I don't go out of my way to cut pine or bass wood but if it is dead or in my way it is destined for the fire wood furnace.

Gonna see about getting more pictures of the other elms today, before or after the rain.

:D Al
 
I wish we had more elm. That bark off stuff is mostly dry and burns phenomenally. And I agree with others who say that elm is underrated on the BTU charts.
I've only seen a couple American Elms since Dutch Elm Disease went through. I was a kid and my Dad's company had a contract removing them for the city, D.C. My job was wiping down all of the saws that came in contact with the wood. Had gallon jugs of alcohol, just washed down the bar and chains. Then I had to keep an eye on all of our ropes. Had a bunch of greenies grab a rope and tied themselves to a tree. Once they were there, we couldn't touch them, took hours to clear them out. We took home lots of bigger limb wood. All the trunk wood went to the dump. I forget if it was a landfill or incinerator? But, we incinerated a bunch at home.
 
When I was a kid (mid 80's) there was one area near our hunting cabin that was nothing but huge elm skeletons. Lots of trees in the 2-3' diameter with big sheets of bark falling off. They are all gone, not even stumps left now.

There are several stands of elms in wetter areas with up to 12" diameter trees coming back now. And way back in the middle of an old regrown logging clearing there is one three leader elm that somehow escaped the massacre.
 
When I was a kid (mid 80's) there was one area near our hunting cabin that was nothing but huge elm skeletons. Lots of trees in the 2-3' diameter with big sheets of bark falling off. They are all gone, not even stumps left now.

There are several stands of elms in wetter areas with up to 12" diameter trees coming back now. And way back in the middle of an old regrown logging clearing there is one three leader elm that somehow escaped the massacre.
Our Boy Scouts have a 99 year lease on a 40 acre piece of woods. There is a monster Elm down by the creek that seems good and healthy. I know I've seen a few others, all by water, but this is the only one I could take you to.
 
Back in the 1970s when I lived in NY a few miles from Canada, the country was loaded with dead elms killed off by the blight. It was the poor man's firewood, and I burned way more than I would have liked. Makes great cookstove wood, but a lot of it was punky, very much a second-choice fuel. We thought that was the end of the elms.

Today, plenty of elms in that country. Many of them still succumb to the blight, but many also grow sizable and healthy. Tallest timber in the woods--with a good eye, from a distance you can pick out the elm branches over-topping the canopy.
 
We have Elms quite a few really. they grow to about a foot across at the stump then die.
I read some where once that Elms close to each other pass the dutch elm stuff thru the roots even.

I know it ticks me off that stuff from the netherlands have really did a job on the Elms and the EAB is killing off all the ash. About time some inspect the loads of junk we get from over seas and stop importing the stuff killing our trees..

:D Al
 
There's a method to splitting elm, as it does not like to split in the typical manner where you strike through the center. The way it works is to direct your cutting edge parallel to the edge of the block, so you're flaking off edge pieces. Eventually (if I remember right), once the edge pieces are gone, you can maybe split thru the middle, but it's stringy stuff no matter how you go about it. I say "if I remember right" because I've been using a hydraulic splitter for (?) five, six years now, where all my other years it was splitting maul and steel wedge for the the worst stuff.
 
I find it interesting that some like Elm and really sing it's praises for a heating fuel while others call it junk and second rate. It almost has to be that we are comparing different sub species doesn't it?! We still cut dead standing elm here in central Iowa and it is excellent. I take most of the limb wood that doesn't need splitting for my freestanding stove and the bigger stuff goes into the boiler or furnace at my brothers and dad's. We try to not split it if possible.....It's a real bugger.

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We have Elms quite a few really. they grow to about a foot across at the stump then die.
I read some where once that Elms close to each other pass the dutch elm stuff thru the roots even.

I know it ticks me off that stuff from the netherlands have really did a job on the Elms and the EAB is killing off all the ash. About time some inspect the loads of junk we get from over seas and stop importing the stuff killing our trees..

:D Al
The Fungi, Ascomycota came from Asia. It is named Dutch Elm disease from the two Dutch Pathologists that identified it. Bea Schwarz and Christine Buisman. When we had the contract with the Distict of Columbia, removing the infected trees from the curb boxes, we had to take down the tree on either side of an infected one. The roots graft together and do pass the pathogen along. That was one of the problems we had with tree huggers seeing us taking down the green trees on either side of the dead ones. That's when a bunch of them grabbed one of our climbers ropes, while he took a smoke break, and tied themselves to a tree. I was a plant pathology major at the U of MD a few years after we removed virtually all of the American Elms from DC.
 
Just looking on Wiki, they say the beatles came to North America via the Netherlands in ship loads of veneer lumber for the Ohio furniture market. Sometimes you have to unlearn, what you learned in the 70's. The Wiki piece said it was first found in Europe in 1910, the Nethelands in 21 and the US in 28. I might go dig out some of my old books and see if they are more specific.
 
And as to inspecting all loads of imported stuff to prevent bad stuff coming in, that's a nice idea but impossible to manage. First you have to know what to look for, and second the vast quantity of global shipping means that only a very few loads of anything can be actually checked. Usually we close the barn door after the horse has escaped (kind of a backward analogy, but it fits.)
 
I find it interesting that some like Elm and really sing it's praises for a heating fuel while others call it junk and second rate. It almost has to be that we are comparing different sub species doesn't it?

Yes, there's elm and then there's elm. Different varieties and different growing conditions in different regions may account for it. Rock elm, for instance, is a prize fuel, usually at the top of all charts, but I believe it's a rare specimen in the wild. I think I cut and burned one in the dim past but could not swear to it.

Where I live now we have Siberian elm, which I would not classify as a top fuel, but it actually burns well and is a hardwood that I prefer over most of the native conifers that I encounter up here in the mountain woods. Siberian elm is almost a weed down on the plains, easy to come by. But the American elm I dealt with years ago in upstate NY was (and is) surrounded by other far better fuels. Sugar Maple is the dominant tree in the woods there, and that's what I prefer to burn--that and ironwood and hickory and oak. I have a camp in the woods and the only elm you'll find at my camp is the splitting block I set chunks on for splitting. I've dropped a bunch of elms in the woods for thinning purposes, and I let them feed mushrooms. A friend, a carpenter/builder, did tell me that some of the best trim wood he's ever had was elm, milled from the nearby woods.
 
The elm I get around my parts is very good for burning. Once barkless it dries in what seems like a week when split. Seems like I get two kinds. The kind with a slightly darker heart and the other is almost yellow. Most of it tears rather than splits.
 
The elm I get around my parts is very good for burning. Once barkless it dries in what seems like a week when split. Seems like I get two kinds. The kind with a slightly darker heart and the other is almost yellow. Most of it tears rather than splits.
Same experiences here.

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All the young fenceline elms we cut 2 winters ago were diseased and full of woodpecker holes. Boxelder were not much better. Burning the last of this now.

 
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