Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

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I had a friend, he's been gone for several years now, that used to go out in the woods and take cutting of new growth and pot them for resale. Not sure of his exact methods, we talked about it once. I believe what he did was cut the new growth from the tips and scrape the cutting with his knife and then dip in a product called Root Grow. He then placed the cutting in potting soil and kept them watered until they took root. I do believe he said that a lot of cutting didn't make it, but many did. He would grow them out for a year or two and then sell them to individuals looking for landscaping plants. Never tired it myself. I prefer the naturized bright orange plants to the more popular, and becoming more common, hybrid varieties.

I have never attempted to wrap a limb in peatmoss to encourage root growth. My Uncle does something similar with apple trees. He will take a sandwich bag and slip over a small stem, then fill with potting soil, add water and seal the bag. The moisture in the bag provides something for the stem to root in and the tree keeps the stem fed. He has had very good success using this method. I suspect this method would work pretty well with Azaleas. I have taken grape vines and placed a section of the vine in a bucket/pot of soil. The vine will root in the soil and then you just cut the vine away from the main vine. Roots are already in the bucket growing and don't have to be disturbed. Pretty much works every time. Makes transplanting much easier to.
 
So, here in Colorado, the land of legal weed, I got curious about the process of cloning, as most commercial weed is from cloned plants. (I just grow 2--3 from seed in the garden, cause I like old school.) What I learned about cloning applies to the rooting discussion above.

Us tree guys know that any part of a willow tree will root when stuck in water. The willow has some kind of hormone that produces roots. So you could boil (if I remember right) willow stems to produce the hormone and then apply it to whatever you want to produce roots on. Probably no one is making "Root Gro" from willow--the product is now synthesized in a lab. But the essential process is the same: you take the hormone that naturally occurs in willow and apply it to a cannabis cutting or azalea cutting or whatever, and stick it in moisture. Voila: a rooted cutting.
 
I had a friend, he's been gone for several years now, that used to go out in the woods and take cutting of new growth and pot them for resale. Not sure of his exact methods, we talked about it once. I believe what he did was cut the new growth from the tips and scrape the cutting with his knife and then dip in a product called Root Grow. He then placed the cutting in potting soil and kept them watered until they took root. I do believe he said that a lot of cutting didn't make it, but many did. He would grow them out for a year or two and then sell them to individuals looking for landscaping plants. Never tired it myself. I prefer the naturized bright orange plants to the more popular, and becoming more common, hybrid varieties.

I have never attempted to wrap a limb in peatmoss to encourage root growth. My Uncle does something similar with apple trees. He will take a sandwich bag and slip over a small stem, then fill with potting soil, add water and seal the bag. The moisture in the bag provides something for the stem to root in and the tree keeps the stem fed. He has had very good success using this method. I suspect this method would work pretty well with Azaleas. I have taken grape vines and placed a section of the vine in a bucket/pot of soil. The vine will root in the soil and then you just cut the vine away from the main vine. Roots are already in the bucket growing and don't have to be disturbed. Pretty much works every time. Makes transplanting much easier to.
I think the stuff I have is called Root Tone". Same thing, dip the cutting in it. It's so simple and common sense, but I never thought of it. Putting a pot under the branch and holding it under potting soil. We just planted a dozen plants yesterday. I'm going to go out right now with some of the smaller containers and try that. Remind me to update the trial in a few weeks!
 
I did get these in tonight along with one I didn't get a pic of (you'll have to imagine like this except split.) 3 of these will be for fire pit and the largest one I may try to make a barn owl nesting box out of. Looks to be perfect with almost a little roof over the entrance.
View attachment 824586
View attachment 824587
Rounds like that with a hole in the middle make great Swedish fire logs.

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk
 
Good news, bad news. Bad news is there were no limbs low enough to try using a pot. Good news, down in the corner where the Azalea's used to be, are a bunch of Native Dogwoods. The Dogwood Anthracnose wiped out all but one of my Dogwoods. Now there are a bunch, maybe, growing off the old stumps. I'll have to keep an eye on them and see how they are progressing.
 
Pretty cool how nature adapts to its environment or selects the most suitable for it. Aussie bush fires are needed for some seeds to germinate. Some of your Northern species we've had to keep the seeds in the fridge to germinate. Some seeds need to have the hard coating nicked/scratched because they usually would go through the acidic digestive process of birds, etc to dissolve that coating.

Timing of when to take and plant cuttings can make a huge difference to the strike rates. We've got people here who only ever do it by the moon.

I got laughed at by a mate of a mate when I dropped off two cutting trays of lime cuttings. The laughing hyena used to own an orchard and told my mate not to bother watering them because they'll never take and have to be grafted to root stock. So, I turn up a fortnight later and the two trays are full of dead sticks. Told him I don't give a shite if (from experience) the strike rate is only 5 trees every tray of 50 cuttings, his lack of faith just killed 10 trees. Really pissed me off actually.
 
135rings. 48”ish

White oak. Narrowest thickness is about 3 inches

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Sent while firmly grasping my redline lubed RAM [emoji231]
 
What splitter ya running?

Fisco. It used to be a farm and ranch supply store, with their own equipment brand. I find zero information in searches, the filter has no numbers. A lot of splitter brands use this same filter, so I think it ought to work. I don’t know what else to do.
 
My daughter and I went scrounging in the woods today and came home with a shopping bag full of wild leeks, or ramps as some people call them. Either way, I'll be looking forward to some potato leek soup!
One of my woods, is full of ramps, I usually dig some every year...

Anyway, I cut this white oak out today,

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It's gonna make some nice firewood,

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With that done, I headed for the BSM and milled a red oak I owed a helper,

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and it made a nice pile of lumber for him,

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SR
 
Started with this today.
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Then took down the rest of the broken maple - ended up with enough tools in the woods that I only got this half load on the way out because...
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I don't normally show my stumps, but in the interest of letting the youngsters see it for educational purposes, here it is. This is the rarely used but completely ineffectual double reverse high Hollander dumbolt coop bay sloping method. (OK, I made that up.) I had to cut high to avoid the fence that was grown in. I started to cut the notch on the side with the 20° lean and went a little too deep. Turns out that was most of the solid wood and it sat down on my chain, leaving a visible imprint in the pic. I took the powerhead and bar off and hit the back a few times with the Fiskars. It didn't go over as easy I thought it might but I found out how punky it was. I ended up using a proper ax to finish it off.
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The top side of the cut shows there is only a tiny part beyond the notch near the center that is still solid.
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By the third round the tree was fairly solid so off to the firewood stacks.
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Traveled almost the entire width of the Commonwealth of PA Saturday. Turkey season opened up here and had the opportunity to go up to Luzerne County at our family farm near Wilkes-Barre.
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Had to be out of the woods by noon, legal hunting hours end. Then, hauled it home to unload and drive to Nottingham,Pa to pick up a g660 from fellow member PSUIEWALSH. Super nice guy! Can’t wait to noodle the rest of the maple at the cemetery with it. Should make short work.
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