Pine Pruning for Firewood

davecla

I'm moved on to a property with about 5 acres of pine planted for firewood.
Most of the trees are about 10 - 20 years old and have never been thinned or pruned.

I've started working through, pruning out what I can reach and clearing out the deaduns.

Can anyone tell me what the pruning and thinning plan should be (should have been).

Goal would be to have nice straight trunks for easy processing in the years to come.

thx Dave

Bruce Hopf

Best place to ask this question, would be in the Ask and Arborist. I'm sure that you will get a lot of help over there, at that forum. Personally I have no idea to your question. Sorry I couldn't help you any better that this. Bruce.

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windthrown

Pine for firewood is not that great. Well, unless it is pinion pine, or some type of dense pine. Chances are that its Monterey pine, or similar cross species down there (like KMX, a Monterey-Knobcone cross). Monterey pine pruning for timber in NZ and Oz is quite intense. There have been several threads on other sites where I discussed this in detail with some guys down under. I have been quasi-banned from the forum that had the most discussion though. Do a Google search on Monterey pine thinning and pruning, and several interesting items will pop up.

BTW: I lived in and around Monterey, CA for about 20 years. There Monterey pine is considered a trash species, used heavilly in landscaping (bad choice in my view). I have climbed, felled and pruned a lot of them. It only really used around there for firewood. It burns hot and fast. I burned mostly euc, oak and madrone when I lived there. I know one guy in Carmel that used it for his house flooring, but it was a PITA to get it installed (it tends to twist a lot when it dries). There was an intense push to plant KMX pine stands in central Oregon near Roseburg, were I lived for 4 years, but it was a giant failure. Basically the trees grow fast for about 10 years, and then they just stop, seemingly because it is too cold. The opposite is true for Doug fir; when planted near Monterey, CA the baby Doug trees tend to die, becasue it is not cold enough down there for the trees to go dormant in winter.

Note that Monterey and KMX crosses in NZ grown for timber look little if anything like the original native trees do in California. For firewood, I am not sure what the best process for pruning would be. From what I understand, pine stands in NZ are intensively managed, they use fertilizer to speed growth, and they use a triple pruning method to produce tall, straight, very fast growing stands. They prune off the side branches to reduce the knots in the trunks. Trees grown there are harvested in 20-30 year cycles, far shorter than we can grow Doug firs here. But then, we do not need to treat Doug fir for building houses with either; untreaded Monterey pine rots pretty fast. Note also that there have been a lot of planting of Monterey pine in Ireland of late, and a lot of information there about it.

Some PDF files for reading:

http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/reposi...6p37-68945.pdf
http://www.agriculture.ie/media/migr...ryPine_low.pdf

davecla

Monterey (or radiata pine as we call it here) is pretty much the only tree grown in NZ.
Widely known to be crap for pretty much everything but it does grow fast.
NZ is full of it, looks like crap too.

Anyway, pine is what I've got. Its the only thing I'll ever cut or burn (well for the next 20 anyway).

I'm going to replant with gum but dont know if it'll be around to harvest.

Back in the day I worked as a contract pruner (some 25 years ago), but cant for the life of me remember the heights or years for the prunes.

windthrown

Well, if you are not growing them for timber sales, it will not matter when or how you prune them. Knots will just burn hotter. These trees (Pinus radiata) are pretty short lived. Maybe 50 years tops in their native habitat. I have cut many down and bucked them up for firewood. They cut pretty easy. They are full of terpentine though. And sap, they seriously sap up my chainsaws. I cut a lot of old Bisop pines last year. They are related to Monterey and knobcone pines. Surface roots are a real bitch on these trees, and they do a lot of damage to roads, sidewalks and house foundations. They also dump tons of needles all year, especially in the fall. They also drop sap on your car if it is parked under them, and they can ruin the paint. The squirrels also cut the small branches off and eat the pine nuts year round, meaving a mess. They evolved along the California coast to trap fog in summer and drip water to the roots during the dry season. The roots are shallow too, and they fall over in any kind of wind. They are suseptible to pine beetles, and many are dying in their native stands becasue of them. I would never plant one in my wildest dreams.

Another thing is that the wood will not last long once it is felled and cut up. So I would cut only what you can burn in the following year. Otherwise the bugs and rot get to it, and it turns to useless balsa wood. The bark is also really thick on it. The woodpeckers store live oak acorns in the bark of Monterey pine standing snags. They wait for grubs to move into the acorns, and then they eat the grubs. Some snags have thousands of holes drilled into them. They last for a few years until the stumps rot out, and then they topple over. I used to prune them for landscaping, but I hated that. They do not have dormant buds that will become active after pruning, so you have to be carful to prune them to live growth. That leads to these really bizzare long stem growths and the 'scenic' tall spindly trees that they have in Carmel and the Big Sur coastline. God, but they love those trees down there! The oaks there are far and away better, easy to prune, live forever, and need little care. They also have way better firewood.

I dunno why NZ got into planting the Monterey pines. *shrug* Like I said, seems that Ireland is crazy about them now too. They are also overplanted in many a shopping mall and landscape. They cloned the crap out of them here. Fast gowing, but worthless in my view. Doug firs are far more valuable for firewood, landscaping, and timber. But they take longer to grow and harvest. Everyone wants instant and fast I guess. Of course, they planted a lot of gums in California as well. Also a messy trash tree there, good for firewood though. I would not plant any of them either.