Is Ecalyptus the best firewood?

[face cord]

If you were planting a new platation for firewood?

 

 

It has about the highest btu of any wood & grows very fast...

 

 

Downside is frost tolerance, oils maybe could tar up flue?,does it take very long time too season like other high btu woods i.e oak?, also not native so people are against it but neither are the softwoods and there accepted.

 

Company thinks frost-resistant eucalyptus can thrive in southern Alabama

 

Company thinks frost-resistant eucalyptus can thrive in southern Alabama | al.com

 

 

Among the fastest growing hardwoods on earth -- reaching more than 50 feet in two years

 

Urm?! magic trees!

Edited April 20, 2012 by face cord

[Stu]

ve been planting eucalyptus on a estate I work for, its a bit of a trail run to see what they grow like. We've been using a method called mounding to plant them on where a excavator digs little mounds all over the place and then trees are planted on the mounds its meant to help with frost and create a weed free enviroment for them to grow, hopefully something good will come from them

Edited April 20, 2012 by Stu

[Max Plank]

I think frost tolerance is the limiting factor in the UK.

 

There is some interesting info here:

 

Prima Bio - eucalyptus specialists - promoting new uses for eucalypts

[davetaz]

Eucalyptus is planted extensively in some warmer countries (especially madagascar) to produce firewood and charcoal (their primary fuel for cooking).

However the plantations contain absolutely no wildlife value what so ever!!

[codlasher]

I'm not a fan of eucalyptus plantations in the UK having seen the results of bush fires in Tasmania. The timber is good although that would not change my mind, plus there are no benefits to uk wildlife as has been mentioned. They use the contour method similar to mounding and some of their species is frost tolerant so these are the ones planted in the UK. Yes they do produce good firewood but is that all you want from your stand?

I think, in all honesty, an Ash stand would provide a better cash return. This seems to be a little like the 1970's rush to find 'alternatives' like Southern Beech. Useless, always blowing over and worthless for anything!

I am always surprised when folk quote 'massive growth potential' of a foreign species. Well planted British natives will nearly always out perform outsiders when situated in their best environment. That is then 'Good Forestry Practice'!

Codlasher.

[slack ma girdle]

What is wrong with sycamore, it seasons quickly, and a joy to split.

[Stereo]

Sycamore is maybe the future for the wood fuel industry I think. As a crop I mean.

[djbobbins]

Euc is a pig to split, very knotty and fibrous.

 

It is great firewood when seasoned but anything of a decent size (bigger than three or four inches across) will take three years at least to season, based on my experience.

 

Whilst I can't "speak" for the recent winters (where we have seen minus 10 or so) because I had felled the two eucs on my land by then, I live in rural Warwickshire and they were both healthy and rapid growing.

 

We met the people who'd owned our house years before (mid 1980s I think) and planted the eucs as small trees; I felled them in 2007 and they were 40 foot odd and getting on for 20 inch diameter in the base at a guess. That was under "standard" growing conditions and I know one of them had been pollarded at least once.

 

Unfortunately I don't know the genus though.

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

What is wrong with sycamore, it seasons quickly, and a joy to split.

 

Sycamore is maybe the future for the wood fuel industry I think. As a crop I mean.

 

Syc is my fave firewood by far; as above pops open at the slightest tap and dries so fast!

 

Masses of euc down ere...

[chopper brown]

Was told recently that a load of euc was planted for biomass power stations and it has all done really bad so there's going to be a big demand for another source of wood. So can't be that good a crop.