"Farm" Site Made Woodfuel

I am pretty sure the photo is in Canada.

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One is Canada one is Brazil.
Same company, once voted the worst company in the world.
I will answer anymore questions in private because I am ruining Steve’s thread with this sad stuff.

Sorry Steve.

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Well, I often wondered if biochar could help bring plant life back to Mordor. I’m not too sure about the toxic sites pictured, but biochar may help bind up enough of the elements that are toxic to plants and maybe give them a chance to grow. I like to plant trees on a 10’ by 10 foot spacing. That is 435 trees per acre and in PA that will give them enough space to get developed without crowding for a decade or two. Steve, have you considered planting Dawn redwoods? This ancient tree may do well in your wetter areas. You could also try biochar around the well watered (pissed on) trees. It should intercept the urea and protect the roots. My tree of choice in PA is Norway spruce. The deer pretty much leave it alone. Any hardwoods are just decimated by the deer. It takes a real act of hope to plant a tree because they take so long to develop a canopy. But, I get real pleasure hearing the wind whisper through the spruces I planted 12 years ago and am glad I did not give up, even when some years saw a 80% death rate. Just replant the next year!
Love those trees.
Gary Gilmore, forester and owner of a Certified Tree Farm

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Where as the char does absorb but not neutralize, the ashes from wood will do.
If you apply fresh ashes to the polluted area, having the best effect, its partial similar as quicklime or calcium oxide.

i choose the ashes to trow away and use the carbon to drive :grin: and i found this article that might clarify why it could be a good idea…

https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/academic-and-educational-journals/calcium-oxide

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Yes, sorry Steve from my behalf too.

Koen is right. Woodash combined with urine will give off lots of amonia. So will ash and manure. Its why its not advised to use too much in the garden or in combination with manure. However l always dust ash over potatoes and fertilise twice with fresh manure solution, always had strong healthy plants.

As for charcoal, l think it might work better for this purpose. A sudden release of amonia when urine and ash react might be worse thain the actual urine, while charcoal shuld absorbe it and allso hold a perfect place for denitrification bacteria that will break it doen to nitrogen.

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I did not pay attention to the beginning of this topic. What struck me most was Steve’s comment/remark about how this 10 acres cleans the air from a certain amount of Carbon dioxide, hence airpolution.

I think that would be the most important number to mention in any future debate with a politician: “How much CO2 do you take out of the poluted air ?”
In Steve’s case, he takes more CO2 then that he’s blowing in the air again…

Can’t give enough thumbs up for that. :+1: *pounds CO2 extracted from the air.

The crazy good news is, more people are willing to do exactly that… and i am one of them.

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I find it so funny stumbleing upon articles titled like “sciencetists discovered a way to extract CO2 from the athmosphere!” showing insanely expencive power demanding machines that extract trace amount of CO2. Hadnt they heared of trees before?

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I have the same responses. I told someone on a different site recently that not only does my wood lot sequester carbon but my barn has been storing it for several hundred years now and still functions as a barn very effectively. Properly utilized a wood lot is an amazing thing. I am sure the barns came from the same wood lot I am using to do repairs today.

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Yes.Yes.Yes.
This what exactly my intention putting up this topic.
What me, you, others CAN do individually will make a real tangible effect in our little corners of our worlds. Tears of rain makes rivulets. Rivulets combine to make streams. Streams make oceans.
Even effective starting down to just 10 US acres.
Even effective down to a local Hecate? (metric) acre.

Gary Gilmore has some fantastic numbers and local effects he puts up in his presentations. Shown real on his own property management.

Eat less pizza’s, cakes and participate less in fantasy “sports” . . . up ass an go out and plant nurture trees.
Politicians/mad-scientist types blow less hot-air, smoke and mirrors and up-ass hands-on go out and do the same.

A true world savior takes care of their own corner. Exampling for results. Jesus. Gandhi. Mother Teresa. Jonney Apple Seed. Many local Scouting groups now out forestry planting for merit badges and their future world.

tree-farmer Steve unruh

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Hey GaryG.
Yes I’ve thought about redwoods. Not sure on the asian? Dawn variety for here PNW mountain rain country local. Many have tried the Sequoia type here. This far north and inland they will grow. Never, every cone to reproduce. I’ve read why not. Cannot off head remember regurgitate why-not.
many here including me have tried Birches too. Massive fail. They grow well. Our sapsucker birds girdle them at ~15 years of age at 4-10 foot heights on their trunks. Our sap loving bugs move into the bird made sapweeping holes. Wood peckers then fully girdle the tree after the bugs. Dead tree.
Some have tried up here more southern mid-westcoastal Madrona’s. Fail.
Murtlewood trees from our coasts . . . fail inland here too.

Ha! I have better luck mixing out of area exotic chickens. And even here. Sad to see frostbit blacken high combers types. Feather foots?! Mud foot rots.

Again: these are some of the why’s I think the best solutions will always be local regional made and supported.

Best regards
tree-farmer Steve unruh

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Steve my wood lot is under the management of a forester he has managed it for about 3 decades now since my grandfather got to old to manage it himself and to be honest he does far better at knowing which loggers are honest. Anyway I asked him a few years back about seeding walnut here as they should grow in this region but are not here. His response was a long the same lines as your. Nope better to just cut on a high seed drop year and let the native trees come back they are adapted to this soil type and will have less issues and grow faster. I have a section which is all pine and was hoping to get some higher quality wood. Not that I would actually live long enough to harvest the walnut for lumber anyway. But it was just the idea of Maybe I can make it better. But to be honest that is all pine because it is almost all sand up there. Hard to grow much else in sand.

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While I agree with both of you some experimentation can reap rewards. I want to try some filberts here maybe some korean pine for pine nuts. Not native but from similar climates in different parts of the world. Possibly shifting weather earlier springs. Humans have been jacking the system since there have been humans. Some times disastrously sometimes with success.

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I agree with Gary about Norway Spruce. They have survived the best of the store bought trees. Down side it that they grow slow at least at first.

Now I have become a seed saver/spreader. Cost, almost nothing. I look for strong trees and try to spread their seeds.

I also try out a SMALL amount of store bought seedlings to try out, just in case.

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Do NOT mess with Mother Nature!!! Look at sparrows. They were brought here from England – I am told. Now look at the snakes in the Everglades. A few years ago on a trip to the southeast I saw a weed that had been imported and it totally covered everything-- fence rows, telephone polls and wires going up to hold the polls.-- it looked like ONE big bush.TomC

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Good old boys hard at work saveing the people from ?.

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Hi All,
As I said here? or on another DOW topic? that I would be super busy in the Spring high-growth time individually forestry line trimmer hogging out the 2200+ Doug Fir seedlings we re-planted 3 and 4 years ago. Need to knock back the spontaneous growths for competition for light, nutrients and water especially in the upcoming 6-8 weeks of annual Summer drought here.
Again we are trying to make a diverse forest habitat; NOT just a fir tree mono crop plantation.
Lots and lots of garder snakes, rabbits, mice, voles, ravens, hawks out there now this year.
Lots of birds, chipmunk/squirrels planted in filberts and mountain ash seedlings growing there now too.
So slow careful going at this to save as many as possible desirable’s.
My worst nemesis neighbor was a great time saver by fence hopping afternoon of May the 30th and back-pac glyphosate spraying about 8 of the 10 acres affecting about 1000 of the DF trees. At least 400 have by now died.
He was angry at me for dig-in replacing five wooden fence posts on put in place back 1989 by survey between us that he has been trying to forced moved for the last 18 years. He is a married into the area newcomer in 2001.

A forester nightmares: fires; diseases; human damages.
Ha! Porcupines and tops cutters birds I can shoot-kill.

Life goes on.
The 5 year ago planted apple, prune/plumb trees are 10-15 feet high now and fruits setting for the last two years. Still waiting on the new cherry trees to fruits set.
28 of the this Springs planted Ash trees are still doing fine. Lost two of the 30 Red Alder to mice/rats; two more to deer; and one to my weed-eater sucked in from mowing down the wild crowding in daisys.

My points.
Stop talking, postulating, pontificating, and go out and plant some trees!!!
They do/will grow despite losses.
The real loss is the year by year Time you have lost by not doing anything except jabber-do-nothing.
Time you will never get back.

Time is what this grumpy chemical-happy baby tree-killer neighbor stole from us.

You NOT doing any trees planting; year by year; waiting/waiting; for-the-perfect time/ the-perfect-understandings, are stealing from yourselves, your children, and their futures…
tree farmer Steve unruh

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Very sorry to hear about the kind of neighbour you have there. That loss sounds significant, to the point I would take buddy to small claims court. People like him wouldn’t like to pay for those kinds of losses.

The standard of proof is far less for small claims, and attaching a dollar value to the loss will make him slightly more aware of liability, at least, and by the sounds of it you may be rewarded with a judgement for thousands, as it’s not just replacement seedlings, but part grown trees. Document everything, evaluate the loss, and go for it, at least that’s what I would do.

Not sure how your system may work there, but self representation works fine here, only viva voce evidence, and photos and documents at hearing are accepted, and judgements up to $10,000 awarded.

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I found out this spring the gentleman who owns the 240 acres south of me heavily sprayed a plant last year said to deter deer. The plant is Tansy. I wonder if that is the reason my bees failed to fill out the hives last year. In his defense, he didn’t know I had bees. Luckily I talked to him this year and is willing to try a more natural way of controlling those plants if the need arises again. I will give him a jar of honey from this group of bees to show I mean no ill will and am willing to work with him if needed.
Planting trees. I can barely get through my woods to collect sap in the spring. A lot of the birch trees were cut in 2007 on one of my 40 acre parcels. Clumps of birch now stand where the old stumps are. The poplar tree fills in every bit of space that isn’t occupied by mature birch or maple. I talked to the head of the forestry guy for our county as to how to properly manage my land. He spent a good hour with me to educate. I sent him home with some freshly made birch syrup and honey we had just harvested at the time.
I really have no room to plant new trees. Matter of fact I need to thin out. I now know when I get back into wood gas, my primary fuel will be poplar. I don’t even have enough of an opening to run an atv through it without clearing a path. I will take his suggestion about thinning the birch down to one to two trees per clump to reduce competition. The maple trees are self seeding well and I’ll let the natural competition take place. I have plenty of balsam fir in the mix and will leave them be as well. I recently found a small low lying area with mature cedars. I have yet explored all my land. I plan to leave most of it as is and enjoy the diversity of trees. I would like to cut a small atv trail through it. The 40 acres I live on was clear cut in 2007. It primarily has balsam fir, birch and poplar that is now 11 years old. The trees have taken over but there is still a lot of raspberries and strawberries. For $300/acre, I am very pleased.

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Bill,
Seems we have about the same type of growth (apart from poplar).
About the birch. Thinning is good but don’t over do it. Some competition allows for long. straight and knotless stems. With too much thinning limbs will grow and spread out.
My 2c

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You’re talking about kudzu. It was a terrible idea at the time,. But now the cows love it. And we make jelly from the blossoms. It also helps control our other nemesis, privet hedge.

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