Cutter, that is some great info. Thanks for the post. I have burned a lot of hedge but never had a moisture meter. However, most of the time, I found burning it that it performed in line with your test results. Sometimes when I cut though I would get LOTS of white sap from the cut ends and I always figured I should try to set that load aside for longer drying. Anyway, great post. Thanks, SteveCutter said:Howdy all. Hedge is the only wood I cut and burn. Because it is the only wood that I have access to that is worth the effort. In an experiment I determined that hedge that is green with leaves intact has a moisture content of 25.25%. This test was not preformed not with a moisture meter but in a drying oven. The pieces were 5" rounds and equally sized splits. The pieces had the bark and thin layer of sapwood removed. I was using their weight in grams before and after drying. The test was run at 130 degrees for three months to start with. After five months the weights had not changed. Trees 28" diameters that were girddled last January and felled this fall had a content of 18-20% on freshly split faces. Three months after splitting green rounds. new split faces were in the 20-22% range. The wood is so dense that there is VERY little interior moisture. I am burning some hedge that was pushed into plies almost forty years ago.The bark is long gone and there is no evedence of any rot. This wood is measuring 7% moisture.
I have NO problem burning wood that has been processed for as little as 6 months. So Cowboy if you have access to these wind rows you will find alot of dead wood that you can burn the day you cut it if the outside isn't too wet. Maybe a quater of what I drop is already dead and burnable. So it goes first leaving the split rounds to loose the moisture from the bark and sapwood for later in the season.
Brad
Cutter said:This test was not preformed not with a moisture meter but in a drying oven. The test was run at 130 degrees for three months to start with. After five months the weights had not changed.
I don't doubt that a bit. The only thing that is wet on green hedge is the very outside (phloem to be exact) The xylem is so dense it has very little moisture.ksburner said:I have actually cut down a standing hedge tree out of my grove and burned it with some dry wood this winter. It seemed to me that I got longer burn times with a piece or two of green hedge mixed in with the dry. I've had several old timers tell me if you have a good coal base, you can throw it in green and get along just fine. If we have another cold stretch like December and early January, my grove is going to disappear rather quickly!