Soft wood

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, nepia said:

To be pedantic softwoods are defined as gymnosperms, not conifers, but nearly all gymnosperms are conifers.  Yew may not be a conifer but it carries its seeds without a carpel, i.e. naked, and is thus a gymnosperm, i.e. a softwood by definition if not by property.

 

Simples.

 

Maybe. 

Yes I'm out of date apparently it has been considered a conifer since 2003, I learned it was a taxad from my first boss way back.

[Stubby]

I always assumed conifer to mean cone bearing . Is this wrong ?

[Daniël Bos]

I always assumed conifer to mean cone bearing . Is this wrong ?

Nah, i think youre correct.
Think the translation of conifer is "carries cone" or summat like that.

But; gymnosperm and conifer are not the same. All connies are gymnos, but not all gymnos are connies. For example, ginkos and cycads are gymnos but not connies.

As mentioned above, gymnosperm means naked seed.

[kev7937]

I imagine the difference could just be due to the different geographical focus. The FAO is a global institution so they will most likely be basing the data from birch forests from regions such as northern Scandinavia, Russia, Canada, etc. These regions have far shorter growing seasons (longer and colder winters) which becomes very apparent in birch. Having burnt birch from UK and N Sweden I can easily believe the differences stated.

I’m sure I thought that b utilis burnt better than pendula so may be due to species as well as location

[Bustergasket]

Interesting reading.........so consider that if you wished to produce the most amount of energy in a given time, let’s say 3 hrs burn time, ignoring number of stokings and volume of wood consumed, then softwood can outperform the hardwood, we see this on our biomass boiler, however the softwood is very very dry and burns with larger flames i think they contact the steel inside to a greater extent and so keep it cleaner, with the hardwood and smaller flames i think the energy is contained within the gases and it’s harder for the boiler to grab the heat from the gas than it is from the flame, especially if it’s got any carbon build up, i think if the hardwood was chopped up as smaller bits ie kindling size it would be a bit more similar, i understand that it’s easy to look in the book and get the kwh/ton ( similar for most species) but i have not seen any ref to burn time, [emoji106]keep on chopping

[Treeation]

On 1/29/2018 at 17:20, nepia said:

Yew... far too good to go in the softwood pile; it goes in with the hardwoods.  It's 'better' (whatever that means) than some perfectly legitimate hardwood logs such as Sorbus.  Willow and pop - if I really have to get rid of any - go in the softwood heap.

I have found sorbus to be pretty dense and would defo go in the hardwood pile, willow and pop go in the softwood section too

[Philip Anderson]

2 hours ago, Treeation said:

I have found sorbus to be pretty dense and would defo go in the hardwood pile, willow and pop go in the softwood section too

It’s not about the density on Sorbus it’s the fact that it’s a crap burner takes ages to dry out and could put a good fire out !

cedar on the other hand is brilliant.

there are both good and bad hardwoods and softwoods from a firewood point of view.

[Treeation]

4 hours ago, Philip Anderson said:

It’s not about the density on Sorbus it’s the fact that it’s a crap burner takes ages to dry out and could put a good fire out !

cedar on the other hand is brilliant.

there are both good and bad hardwoods and softwoods from a firewood point of view.

really! dont think ive burnt it, just sold it on

 

[nepia]

Just monolithed a 24" dbh specimen (no idea of the species - does Swedish Whitebeam grow to that size?) and left the lot for the owner as firewood.  Have I just created a new firewood customer?!

[Philip Anderson]

21 hours ago, Treeation said:

really! dont think ive burnt it, just sold it on

 

The best way ship it out keep the best stuff to burn ourselves.