Pecans Down - Come and Get Your Heating/Cooking Wood

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Ring count is an extremely accurate way to measure tree age.

But you've got to know how to read them! Hidden in them is much information including monthly and even weekly rain fall amounts, temperatures, etc.


Then how do you enplane a 42 to 45 year old tree having 70+ rings. These were clear easy to see rings.
 
I found 5 more trees, making the total 27. If only I had a railroad spur running up the middle of the orchard:dancing:

We are in middle GA between Macon and Dublin. I have a 42 inch bar/chain combo coming to help in this project and with a monster pine that fell on my shed during the storm. Oh yes, some of the trees would make good lumber, but, as most pecans are, these trees were "trained" at an early age to have three main forks starting about head high, so the boards would be fairly short for most of them.

Is it just me or does the loss of a 100 year old plus tree cause a wee bit of sadness?
very sorry for the loss of your trees. any agri business is real tough, my grandfather had a medium sized daury farm in central virginia. and had several hundred peach and apple trees. after many tough seasons of damaging storms and killing frosts i came home from school one spring afternoon to the sight of him bull dozzing and burning his orchars. both he and my grandmother were in tears. i feel your pain and wish you rhe best in the future.
 
I'm not sure counting the rings is the best way to determine the age of a tree.
On my homestead my dad planted a pecan tree in what was a chicken pin at the time. He had to put a cage around it to keep the chickens from pecking the leaves off. I was just a kid and I can remember riding my bike in the chicken pin because there was no grass, just dirt.
We lived in the country so we had no concrete or pavement to ride on. The dirt was the smoothest place we had to ride.
Anyway, about 5 years ago I had to take that pecan tree down for safety reasons.
I had to be 8 or 9 when the tree was planted and when I took it down I was 52.
That mad the tree 42 years old. The trunk was 56" in diamiture and had 70 rings.
Everyone thought the tree was much older then it really was. Many estimated it at 100+ because of it's size.
I took several other trees down over the years on the homestead and I know there age but the rings say there older then they were.
So I'm having doubts on size and ring count to determine tree age.
I'm sure growing conditions make a big difference.
i'm sure the chicken poo made it grow to an eggnormous size.
 
Well, here we go again! Give or take 22 large pecan trees were blown down Monday by either straight line winds or, most likely, a tornado (to be determined by further examination). These trees are well over 100 years old, and, as y'all can imagine, it's a big mess to clean up. I've burned pecan wood in both wood stoves and open fireplaces for years, and it makes very good firewood.

Anyone who wants to come to middle Georgia to help themselves to what amounts to probably 50 or more cords of wood is welcome. As soon as I get the insurance agent to inspect the site I'll start cleanup. I have a grapple on my tractor that will be used to pile and burn most everything. It's a shame, but we just don't have much of a market around here for firewood. Fortunately, those of us living in this region have plenty of sources of firewood, but if anyone close by wants this wood before I burn it up, please let me know.

To add insult to injury, a huge pine fell on my shed right on top of my woodsplitter:(

Triple suckage man....if you could bundle it you might be able to sell it though, big chainstores, supermarkets, etc take bundle wood but you need to be able to provide tractor trailer loads.

Georgia is binary when it comes to winds, usually nothing or a little teeny breeze, or ZOMG TIE EVERYTHING DOWN AND HEAD TO THE BUNKER.. one or the other..wish I had a bunker...
 
i'm sure the chicken poo made it grow to an eggnormous size.
Yeah, and having no grass to contend with helped as well.
Funny story.
My dad planted okra where we had a chicken pen for years.
That okra grew to over 16 feet tall and everyone wanted seeds thinking it was some mutant okra. lol
 
Cant really judge a tree's age by size. I have always heard that counting rings was a good indicator of age. That said, I removed soe Northern Red Oak from a dam around 1975 or 76. the trees where anywhere from 6ft to almost 8ft in dia. One would have thought that based on size, the trees had to be hundreds of years old. The dam construction was completed in 1931 making the trees age around 40 or 45 years old.
 
Cant really judge a tree's age by size. I have always heard that counting rings was a good indicator of age. That said, I removed soe Northern Red Oak from a dam around 1975 or 76. the trees where anywhere from 6ft to almost 8ft in dia. One would have thought that based on size, the trees had to be hundreds of years old. The dam construction was completed in 1931 making the trees age around 40 or 45 years old.
Agree. It's all about water availability and nutrients.
 
i'm sure the chicken poo made it grow to an eggnormous size.
Environmental conditions can cause color changes within an annual ring. These changes can cause mistakes when counting rings to figure age.

Maybe, but I have been doing tree work for 30+ years. I think I know how to count rings in a tree.
 
Pecan is excellent firewood and wood to smoke with. I burned a mix of pecan and oak in my fireplace this past winter and put the pecan chips (from splitting) in my smoker box on my grill. My friend and I are actually splitting some pecan that we scrounged tomorrow. It is very plentiful down here in Louisiana as well. Love that type of wood.
 
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010002.jpg.html
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010012.jpg.html
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010026.jpg.html
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010024.jpg.html
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010019_1.jpg.html

I have a logger coming to skid, load and take these logs to the local sawmill. At least I'll have boards and projects to remember this old tree by. The same logger is going to chip my 27 pecan trees which will save me many hours of work. I'll post some pictures of that operation later.

Can someone telll me how to put the actual pictures on here?
 
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010002.jpg.html
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010012.jpg.html
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010026.jpg.html
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010024.jpg.html
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/rdellweates/media/P1010019_1.jpg.html

I have a logger coming to skid, load and take these logs to the local sawmill. At least I'll have boards and projects to remember this old tree by. The same logger is going to chip my 27 pecan trees which will save me many hours of work. I'll post some pictures of that operation later.

Can someone telll me how to put the actual pictures on here?


Use this or some other site to convert your pictures for forums.
http://tinypic.com/
Chose your file pic, then click on size and choose message board 640x420
Then hit upload pic.
Once it uploads copy and paste IMG code for forums to the forum of your choice.
 
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