Has anyone burned chokecherry?

[KingsxCanada]

Hi everyone, has anyone burned chokecherry? Not regular cherry, but chokecherry. I have lots of it, and its a hard wood. I know it's toxic, so I wonder about the smoke. I know the pits of the berries and leaves are particularly toxic, but I've read about the wood also being toxic. Generally speaking toxicity information is regarding livestock, so generally not an issue for humans - and the berries make great jam!

Just curious if anyone has burned any?

 

[hickoryhoarder]

Yes. Nothing to write home about in terms of flame or heat. I just had some 2" branches I pruned, cut and stacked. I don't know anything about its toxicity.

 

[KingsxCanada]

Yes. Nothing to write home about in terms of flame or heat. I just had some 2" branches I pruned, cut and stacked. I don't know anything about its toxicity.

It's probably fine. I wouldn't maybe smoke meat with it, but the little amount of smoke will likely be okay. I know a lot of people mistaken black cherry for chokecherry too, many say it's fine and even great to burn but then later find out they have been burning black cherry. Well, it's worth a shot.

 

[Manly]

I’ve burned it. It burns. All exhaust from all wood burning is toxic.

 

[Woody5506]

I've burned what I thought was chokecherry but now I don't think it was. The cherry I have has a birch-like bark, which makes it tough to season. Does this sound like choke cherry?

 

[TreePointer]

I've burned what I thought was chokecherry but now I don't think it was. The cherry I have has a birch-like bark, which makes it tough to season. Does this sound like choke cherry?

It can be difficult to differentiate some cherries depending on the known information. For my area, I divide our cherry species into two categories for getting a more precise identification:

1. Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) bark often looks a lot like black cherry bark (Prunus serotina). Their leaves and fruit are very similar, too.

2. If the wood looks like cherry, but the bark looks like birch (horizontal lenticels with some birch like peeling), it's likely a cherry such as Prunus pensylvanica or Prunus avium.

 

[Toasty-Yote]

I burn it a lot since I mostly scrounge for firewood and then cut it in my mitre saw since it is small and manageable with a 10" blade. The roots rot fast but the rest of the tree takes a long time to break down. It is very heavy for its size and puts out a lot of heat but does spark quite a bit. In the Solo stove, it makes for great cooking wood as well with nice hot coals that last a while.

 

[Kevin Weis]

I've burned what I thought was chokecherry but now I don't think it was. The cherry I have has a birch-like bark, which makes it tough to season. Does this sound like choke cherry?

Sounds like Pin Cherry a close cousin. I've burned Pin Cherry and it burned fairly well. Not as good as Black Cherry though.