Fallen Chestnut limbs with black mold

[area_man]

I took advantage of a small scrounging opportunity to put a nice Chestnut limb on my stacks the other day. The limb fell due to disease. While splitting it, I could see that it was shot through with black mold. I split it thin enough that a large majority of the mold was exposed to help it dry out faster.

I have it sitting on a pile of sticks that allow air to get to the bottom, and it's roughly piled for the greatest exposure to moving air.

My question is, should I move this wood away from my main stacks until the mold is dead, or does that not matter much?

The wood closest to it was css a year ago. Maybe it's too wet to tolerate exposure to mold. How should I go about evaluating this situation?

 

[Soundchasm]

My first thought is "does mold needs a living tree to supply the food?". Then is it species dependent? How does it spread? Until the experts weigh in my guess is that in a few months that stuff will be dead. It's good to be on the lookout.

BTW, love your handle. There are plenty of day I need The Onion.

 

[Wood Duck]

I wouldn't worry about it. I think fungi (including molds) are very specific as to where they grow. The mold growing on a live tree isn't likely to grow on a piece of dead firewood. Also the world is full of mold spores, including a whole lot of molds and fungi of all kinds that can grow on your firewood. Your firewood already is covered in mold spores, and the reason it isn't rotting is that wood doesn't rot very easily (compared to other organic things, like bananas, for example), and you have dried it out pretty well.

I have burned some American Chestnut while camping and it burned well, but rather fast. There are lots of 4 or 5 inch standing dead American Chestnut in the woods around here, because that is how large they get before the Chestnut Blight (a mold) kills them.

 

[jillybeansisme]

I don't know about black mold on trees; however, if it is "THE BLACK MOLD" that gets in your house causing your house to be condemned because it can kill you -- I'd only burn it outside. Just a thought, but then again, I don't know about mold on firewood and I'm a newbie who hasn't moved yet to where her wood stove isn't installed yet.