Bitternut

Do you mean bitternut hickory? 2 years minimum and 3 is better.

2 years when cut to 18" long, split no more than 4-5" on a side, and stacked covered in an open, windy field. 3 years otherwise, maybe more.

The 2-3yr thing seems frightening to me. I like to embrace the "one year drying time" theory.
Its more inspiring.
A better pep talk.
But at the same time I keep my nose down, nose to the grindstone. Process the wood, get it stacked as soon as possible and move onto the next tree.
So on and so on...dont look up.
You can linger in thought, but not in action.

hahaha...thats my philosophy. It only takes a few months to dry but you better have 3 years worth. Just in case it takes 3 yrs.

Take some pictures for us if you can. Im not sure what bitternut looks like.

Well I guess that's where the moisture meter wins over the multi-year calendar. If you have a meter you could always re-split a piece after 1 year and see. But being in the round, even with no bark, I'm betting 2 years minimum...

Any type of Hickory I've had has been slow drying. I treat it like Oak, 2 years or more.

It just so happens that I lost a big bitternut in the fall of 2012 and got it split and stacked and top-covered right away. It was a live tree that broke in half (double leader) and my MM showed it as 38% at the time.
Just now I pulled a few pieces and resplit. Very interesting. I got readings that averaged 13% and was surprised how low they were. Here's the thing, though: a three inch diameter round, which I had judged too small to bother splitting, showed moisture of 33%!!

I guess this goes to show that the guys who say that wood doesn't do much drying in the round are right! Even the little pieces!

Here's another thing I learned first-hand: hickory will rot quickly if left in a pile on the ground, so don't tarry.

My experience = bark that is smooth & thin like Birch & Beech... don't allow drying so everything gets split. I think Bitternut bark would qualify, especially the smaller branches & limbs.
Small rounds of many other species will dry okay, maybe just a bit slower than large splits. Great for overnight burns

Applesister said:

I like to embrace the "one year drying time" theory.

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Trust me, if you try to rush it, you will just be frustrated trying to get it to burn well. But if you give it the time, it will put put out so much heat it will scare you half to death when you fill your stove with it.

Dont worry, I have the patience of a turkey vulture.
Ive got 10 yr old Shagbark sitting on my front porch. Almost like those 50yr old white oak Rum barrels sitting in Appletons Rum distillery.
I can wait.

bobdog2o02 said:

I have a 3' diameter bitternut hickory** bucked and ready to split. How long to season this species. It was down for about three years and is still really wet inside.......

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Last summer I scrounged 30" bitternut hickory rounds downed/bucked in 2010. They were really wet but on the ground in a drainage path. Split into 2-3" squares, single stacked, they dried fairly well in 3-4 months. I quartered the rounds when I brought them home, top-covered for the winter, and the stuff I'm splitting this week is testing at 50%. Incredible. I conclude it will not dry until split, and it will go punky.

It smells very good when burning. It's as pleasant as black cherry. The bark held some of the rounds together when quartering to the point of frustration. Would not let go w/o being cut. Here's some of the underlying wood from that pesky bark. Very cool.

Gorgeous figure in that wood, Soundchasm! Is that split or sawn?

Applesister said:

Dont worry, I have the patience of a turkey vulture.
Ive got 10 yr old Shagbark sitting on my front porch. Almost like those 50yr old white oak Rum barrels sitting in Appletons Rum distillery.
I can wait.

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Patience of a turkey vulture......I gotta remember that line

At our old house we had a very big open back yard with some powerlines running over it. Great place for buzzards...they'd squabble about who got to perch on which pole etc... I used to sit out on my back porch playing my banjo and I swear, the buzzards would come in close to see what I was doing. They'd even land on the yard about 50 feet away and watch me. Maybe my playing sounded to them like a dying critter.....
But I like to think it was just curiosity on their part - they are known to be intelligent birds.

Brewmonster said:

Gorgeous figure in that wood, Soundchasm! Is that split or sawn?

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That's the bark side of a split after I peeled off the bark. It's 3-D. The best I can do when I find that stuff is put them to the side in my collection of "Interesting splits I have known".

Soundchasm said:

That's the bark side of a split after I peeled off the bark. It's 3-D. The best I can do when I find that stuff is put them to the side in my collection of "Interesting splits I have known".

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Beautiful figure indeed - but it looks like it was a bear to split that stuff

BEConklin said:

I like to think it was just curiosity on their part - they are known to be intelligent birds.

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I saw an interesting show on public tv a couple weeks ago, about animal intelligence. Dogs are smart about reading and responding to humans, but crows are apparently better at creative problem-solving. Much bigger brain in relation to body size, a predictor of intelligence.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365218716/