Does Osage Orange grow near YOU?

[tfdchief]

Any of you guys ever eat the fruit?

You can http://www.gpnc.org/osage.htm#Edible

 

[Wood Duck]

Here in central PA you can find a few fencelines with old Osage Orange growing on them. It doesn't seem to spread very much, not even in the brushy field across the road from the neighbor's stand where all the 'monkey balls' roll each fall. It seems to grow fine when planted, just doesn't sprout well in the wild. There are some 60 footers with 2 ft diameter trunks near here, but I have never had the chance to burn any.

 

[jatoxico]

[/quote]

Well, Hedge rows grow very thick and dense, most of the times they are impassible. Farmers used these trees commonly as divisional lines on the property border.[/quote]

Ah....Gotcha.

 

[lukem]

Girdling is when you remove a band of bark around the tree so as to starve the roots (and kill the tree).

Yup, but in this case he cut a ring all the way around the trunk about 2 inches deep with a chainsaw to kill the tree and make room for more desirable lumber species.

 

[weatherguy]

Any of you guys ever eat the fruit?

You can http://www.gpnc.org/osage.htm#Edible

I read somewhere a while back they were edible, or at least parts of it, I was wondering if you ever tried it and what it tastes like.

 

[krex1010]

Any of you guys ever eat the fruit?

You can http://www.gpnc.org/osage.htm#Edible

I read somewhere a while back they were edible, or at least parts of it, I was wondering if you ever tried it and what it tastes like.[/quote

I know deer love the fruit. One of my best early season treestands was right next to a lone hedge tree. I watched a a lot if deer grub on those monkey brains. And then I grubbed on some of those deer.

 

[Woody Stover]

I saw some storm-downed Hedge and talked to the guy about getting some, but he sounded like he wanted to have an insured pro handle the job. I was hoping he'd call me to take some of the wood but he didn't. Oh well, I'll probably get to burn some sooner or later. Seems like you'd have to be careful with it; I've heard that it burns like coal, and I think you could over-fire your stove if you didn't stay on top of it. If I never get any to try, I'll just have to make due with Oak, Hickory, Black Locust and Dogwood. :smirk:

 

[tfdchief]

Any of you guys ever eat the fruit?

You can http://www.gpnc.org/osage.htm#Edible

I read somewhere a while back they were edible, or at least parts of it, I was wondering if you ever tried it and what it tastes like.

Sorry, no i haven't. When I was a kid the old timers said they were poisonous. That was always good enough for me :ahhh:

 

[CountryBoy19]

Lots of it around here but the big thing it takes a lot of cutting to make a cord! (I will take black locust over hedge)

I'm with Jay, Hedge is nice dense, good, long burning wood, but it takes so much work to get a cord of it. The trees grow so bushy and branched out that you are constantly cutting and dragging the brush out.

I would much rather cut BL because it's typically straight and tall with very few branches.

Just to give you an example, I cut hedge and BL on the same property in the same place. Hedge was growing amongst the BL. It took me 2 weeks of working after work and on the weekends to cut 4 cords of hedge. It only took me one weekend to cut 4 cords of BL. The difference? The landowner wanted the brush semi-piled so he could push it with his backhoe. I spent 20 minutes piling the brush from 7 different BL trees, and I spent several hours working on a single hedge tree because it had so much brush, and the brush gets all tangled. But I wanted that tree because it was the largest hedge tree there; it was about 16" DBH and had a straight trunk about 10 feet long before it split off into 2 smaller trunks. It honestly looked like there wouldn't be much work to do to get that wood, but I was wrong.

Am I glad I did the work and got the hedge? Heck yes, would I do it again?

Well, I'll let you know if a few years when my hedge is gone and I am dying to have more.

 

[firefighterjake]

Never heard of this stuff until I started hanging out here . . . we do have black locust, sugar maple and beech though.

 

[ChrisNJ]

Not so common here in Central Jersey but they are around, they are dropping the balls now so along the roads they are easy to find.

 

[onion]

Place I used to hunt has some nice big ones but looking at them they would be such a bear to deal with I would think twice if the old man said I could cut it.

I would think twice and then go do it

 

[lukem]

None around here.

Anyone have paw paw trees?

There are some on my dad's place. Never seen them produce any fruit though. They are real slow growing, but the wood is balsa-wood light when dry. Weird stuff.