Silver Birch

[Nick Watkins]

I understand that Silver Birch being a hardwood has a high calorific value and therefore is good for burning, which is good news for me. As a hardwood then why is it that Silver Birch seems to rot so easily when it is still standing?

 

To explain further I am felling a number of Silver Birch in a mixed environment, ash, Poplar, Oak etc. There seems to be a very large number of Silver Birch in the environment that have died and are rotting in situ, whereas the other species have very little casualties apart from the odd one.

 

Is Silver Birch known to do this?

[armchairarborist]

they are fast growing, fast dying and fast burning..

[Nick Watkins]

That would explain it, thanks.

[nepia]

They're colonisers, the first trees into an open space. Once the space closes in they get squeezed out by second generation trees - the longer lived ones like...oak. Ash is something of a coloniser too; one minute there's nothing, the next there's a 30' high forest of them.

[chilli]

If ever I get silver birch in for logging I have learned that it must be put under cover asap.Left in the open & it rots really quickly.

My yard, in a 1 acre field was last cropped about 1985. Since then it has been left untended & been colonised by hundreds of trees, mainly walnut (thanks squirrel), lots of ash & a few sycamore, elder, hawthorn & wild rose but, surprisingly, no birch.