Hybrid Poplar For Firewood

[ash_smith123]

We've just burnt about 50 cubic metres of it in our boilers, it's perfectly fine when it's dry, getting it dry is the fun part! I've been burning 10" popular logs on my fire at home for the last few months and I've never burnt anything that gets as hot. It doesn't last that long but my god it burns hot!

[chuck norris]

I am not sure of the growth rate, but I have found pop makes great kindling

[skyhuck]

We've just burnt about 50 cubic metres of it in our boilers, it's perfectly fine when it's dry, getting it dry is the fun part! I've been burning 10" popular logs on my fire at home for the last few months and I've never burnt anything that gets as hot. It doesn't last that long but my god it burns hot!

 

This is also my experience.

 

It was me that boiled my central heating. It was a big out door boiler on which I generally burnt green or under seasoned timber. I had some pop that was tucked well in under a big stack of round wood. It was very dry and burned superbly.

 

But as others have said it takes some getting dry and if left somewhere damp will quickly become wet again.

 

I now have a new outdoor wood gasification boiler, it burns "dry" pop very well, but requires more reloading than with better hardwood or even softwood.

[Stubby]

Sorry Dave . It was that long ago I had forgotten it was you .

[skyhuck]

Sorry Dave . It was that long ago I had forgotten it was you .

 

No reason to apologise at all mate

[Big J]

I had about 200 ton of hybrid poplar and bonfired about 180 ton of it nobody would take it even offered it free of charge to a guy with a big chipper for biomass and he wasn't interested, from my experience one thing you will find is those saying it burns ok are very much in the minority.

 

Nuts! I'd have taken it. Love poplar - the perfect compromise between hardwood and softwood (in my opinion) and the friends that had some also really liked it.

 

Dries quickly, puts down a reasonable bed of embers and usually lights just from newspaper.

[peatff]

I got a load of it last year and find it burns fast and leaves a lot of ash like burning paper. I mix it in with better stuff to save getting up to keep loading the fire.

[arbmark]

The thing about Poplar is that you have to get it split and under cover quickly and then it dries out fast. Should definitely be considered a soft wood IMO but without the dubious worries about resins. Worth selling in mixed loads.

[Commando]

Thanks guys, anyone any experience of growing the hybrid poplar? The nurseries are saying 100-150mm dia logs. In 4-5yrs?

[arbmark]

Thanks guys, anyone any experience of growing the hybrid poplar? The nurseries are saying 100-150mm dia logs. In 4-5yrs?

 

We'll not hybrid, but trichocarpa here. My ground could be damper so mine were more like 75mm but they could be right. I guess if the growth is too fast you really would get some lightweight logs that might not sell