I was commenting the other day that it was interesting that tree harvesters on the Eastern Shore of Maryland don’t seem to want hardwoods and focused mainly on pine. I was then told by one of the guys in our farm & land dept that the reason for that was that the quality of hardwoods (for furniture etc) on the Eastern Shore was inferior because it did not have the right mix or quantity of minerals required for optimal hardwood quality and hardness.
Intrigued I tried googling various combinations of “soil minerals and hardwood quality” and cannot find anything addressing this relationship other than generic statements about how plants need minerals in soil for optimal growth.
Is this assertion that a specific mineral mix is required for better quality hardwoods true?
There are certainly different qualities within the same hardwood species. Generally (but not universally), trees that grow too slowly produce gnarled timber with difficult grain. Trees that grow too fast may produce timber that lacks strength and density - and the mineral profile of the soil can be one factor in this.
“Of the many commercial products that a forest on the Lower Eastern Shore can generate, the most valuable is loblolly pine sawtimber. There is a strong market for this because of the many local sawmills engaged in the production of dimensional lumber and structural timbers. Stumpage rates average between $130-200 MBF depending on the quality of wood, tract accessibility, and local market fluctuations. Most mature pine stands are well stocked and average 8-12 MBF/acre. Thus, a clear-cut harvest could generate $1040 – 2400 per acre in stumpage revenue.
There is also a limited market for pine pulpwood and, to a lesser extent, hardwood pulpwood. These markets are weak, and the prices are low compared to other parts of the southeast.
Despite the abundance of the hardwood forest, there are very limited markets for hardwood sawtimber, whether it occurs mixed with loblolly or in pure stands. The local mills will typically pay $50-100/MBF for the average hardwood saw log (a small fraction of the loblolly pine stumpage price). This is because the wet soil conditions, limited merchantable species, and history of high grading have resulted in a very poor quality of hardwood logs on the Lower Eastern Shore. While it is possible to grow high-quality oak and tulip poplar saw logs, the hardwood forests are more often characterized by less valuable species, such as red maple, sweet gum, and black gum, that are often poorly-formed and/or marked with mineral stains or decay. On the upper Shore, the log quality is much better and the markets are much stronger.”
The mineral stuff is bunk, or was being confused with mineral staining, but it does look like the market for the hardwoods is poor because the oak is the only thing with any value and it’s pretty poor quality.
Here is a cite that shows that their may be a like between mineral staining and poor site quality but it is pretty vague and attributes most mineral staining to basal injuries, at least for maple.
I’d say your guy knows enough to solve the curiosity of the average person but didn’t really know what he was talking about.
True-ish. You are what you eat, and so are trees, to some extent. But it may not make a noticeable difference in material quality that can be distinguished from other environmental factors. Poor conditions can lead to irregular grain and ring growth that would have some effect on the physical properties of wood, more dimensional stability than anything else that furniture makers would care about. No idea if mineral content would make that kind of difference, it would seem to lead to a consistent growth pattern since the mineral content shouldn’t change greatly year by year. And if the soil is not good for a particular species of tree then I’d think other species better suited to the conditions would have thrived in the area instead.
Just from personal experience I use a lot of wood called osage orange which was planted all over the country as a hedge to keep cattle in. I use it to make archery bows so top quality is all I can use. For some reason most of the wood coming from the prairie states like Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah and Colorado is a lower quality and not dense enough. Most of the best comes from the southern states and as high up as Michigan, Ohio and even Pennsylvania.
As for mineral in the wood. I ran across a piece of persimmon wood a couple of years ago that would dull any tool I put to it within a few strokes. The band saw blade lasted less than 5 seconds. Files, rasps, scrapers and draw knives had to be sharpened every couple of minutes to work the wood. It had to have had some kind of silica or something in the wood to do that. I have worked plenty of woods harder than persimmon.
OT: At one point its range had shrunk to northern TX / southern OK - because its fruit (“hedgeapples”) was of no interest to any animal after mastadons & mammoths went extinct. The Osage indians did a decent trade in the wood, which was widely recognized as the best for bows. Its qualities as a “natural fence” tree led to its spread by white settlers.
This is a little hard to parse, as 90% of Michigan is north of Pennsylvania.
I buy all my osage and I believe it is coming from the southern part of Michigan, nothing from Wisconsin or Minnesota. The best wood I have ever gotten has come from Michigan and Ohio.
I am quite proud of the Chico Zapote tree, (Manilkara zapota), here in the Yucatan. Beautiful and very hard. And bears a very tasty fruit. There are still Maya arches with Chico Zapote beams.
But it is only 3,500 lbf Janka.
The very hardest from Australia, and Brazil.
In order to answer the OP, soil samples could be taken from the areas surrounding all trees listed on the Janka test and compared.
The first thing we look for is ratio of early wood to late wood. We prefer at least 60% late wood, 80% or more is even better. Wood density is another big consideration. The early to late wood ratio seems mostly dependent on rainfall.
The Osage Orange was planted in Plains states during the 1930s to act as windbreaks, so the trees from that area may have grown in the open and probably grew faster as a result.
Idaho is a prairie state? who knew?
I always thought that hardness of wood was primarily an effect of climate, cooler climate causes slower growth causing harder, denser wood.
Shading is the biggest factor that I know of. Old growth trees which have to grow up in the understory of older trees are valued for their consistent small growth rings.