I love Poplar!

[albertj03]

Been burning nothing but poplar the last couple of days since it's been in the 40's and even 50 today. Much better than burning my oak and locust during this warm spell. Most people around here would rather let poplar rot in the woods than burn it but in my experience it might just be the perfect shoulder season wood. And like my wife's uncle says, "It's better than burning snowballs."

 

[corey21]

Been burning nothing but poplar the last couple of days since it's been in the 40's and even 50 today. Much better than burning my oak and locust during this warm spell. Most people around here would rather let poplar rot in the woods than burn it but in my experience it might just be the perfect shoulder season wood. And like my wife's uncle says, "It's better than burning snowballs."

I have a LOT of of poplar waiting in the stacks never really tried it yet.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

everything i've read all woods produce the same btu as any wood per pound. hell it's lighter and doesn't last as long but a btu is a btu. wouldn't want to buy it as cordwood though unless priced as such

 

[PapaDave]

Good shoulder wood. Good daytime wood, if you happen to be around to reload more often.
I use it.

 

[albertj03]

everything i've read all woods produce the same btu as any wood per pound. hell it's lighter and doesn't last as long but a btu is a btu. wouldn't want to buy it as cordwood though unless priced as such

The only reason I have it is because two poplar trees fell down right near my wood piles last fall so I cut them up and split them. Was surprised to see how quickly the wood seasoned and how light it got. I've got a bunch of them on my property and wouldn't mind clearing some out to let the other trees grow better. They tend to grow real big and steal the sun light and water from the other trees. But yeah, I wouldn't go out of my way to get poplar and definitely wouldn't pay for it.

 

[fire_man]

Ok rub it in. I PAID FOR a 4 foot diameter stinking Cottonwood tree in a Grapple Load. What did I know?? The contract promised ALL HARDWOODS ONLY, which it technically was. It was great shoulder season and stretch-fire wood, but gave less than 1/2 the BTU's of good wood.

Next time I know the right questions to ask! (Should this thread be moved to the Wood Shed?)

 

[Dutch]

When the weather gets warm and I am relighting fires each day, I'll dig through the pile to find some poplar. No, it will not hold a long fire, but it practically lights with a match, gets up to temp very fast, and cuts my startup time in half compared to hardwood.

 

[TradEddie]

I miss having poplar, easy to split, easy to carry, easy to light, easy to burn. I've one more fully grown poplar just that little bit too close to my house (15 feet!). Prevailing winds for 99% of all storms will drop it away from the house, but that last 1% would hurt. May be on the next Preventive felling schedule.

TE

 

[bag of hammers]

I miss having poplar, easy to split, easy to carry, easy to light, easy to burn. I've one more fully grown poplar just that little bit too close to my house (15 feet!). Prevailing winds for 99% of all storms will drop it away from the house, but that last 1% would hurt. May be on the next Preventive felling schedule.

TE

Power line crews left a few of these in the mix and i scooped a few logs. Agree with everything said so far. Used up a bunch in the warm spell recently.

 

[clemsonfor]

haven had a fire since last wendsday night. Its been 70+ here the last few days.

 

[begreen]

One local tree cutter calls it chitwood and gives it away. I will take it by the truckload. It's a good wood for our long shoulder seasons.

 

[BrotherBart]

Years ago I heated this place with Tuplip pop all winter and we survived just fine. And both were working and gone all day with a 40 mile each way commute. But heaven help anybody that got between us and the door at quitting time. Had to haul butt home before the joint got too cold.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

Years ago I heated this place with Tuplip pop all winter and we survived just fine. And both were working and gone all day with a 40 mile each way commute. But heaven help anybody that got between us and the door at quitting time. Had to haul butt home before the joint got too cold.

Alot of pallets are made with is stuff. free wood is free wood,pretty profound,uh. also easy to tell what it is when you see it, color range gold to yellow to almost a greenish hue.

 

[schlot]

I liked using my cottonwood during non shoulder times especially in the morning to get some quick heat going. When I cook and the stove needs to be ramped up, it's nice to throw a piece on to get the temps up for a short time.

 

[Wood Duck]

I like poplar. It is easy to process, splits really nicely, and like others have said it heats up the stove fast.

 

[Applesister]

Ditto on all of the above comments. I dont suffer the catholic guilt from cutting it as I do from the more desirable firewoods. I have a furniture making woodworking background with a general appreciation for great landscapes. As one guy stated on here he has to cut trees while his wife is away from the property. Thats me too. It kills me to cut fine healthy wood down. The woods here are loaded with hickory and ironwood and I keep cutting poplar because Im afraid the wood fairies will get me in my sleep.
When Im dead and gone some real estate developer will come in here and clearcut all the trees, scrape the 2' of topsoil off. Bring in huge heavy machinery and regrade all the hills. Build a bazzillion low grade houses. Sell them for choking prices and sell back all the topsoil to landscape over all the subsoil. And bring in a bunch of nursery companies to landscape with flowering dogwoods and lilac bushes and exotic asian cedars and sell it all for premium prices.
All with their clean burning natural gas fireplaces that come on at the turn of a dial.
NOT
Might as well clear cut it myself...right? Starting with a nice sized shagbark hickory. Standing at the edge of a low creek bed. The ground must freeze up a bit to get back into where it stands. But in the meantime there is a giant cottonwood at the edge of the woods separating the beehive boxes from the dense trees behind them.
I even feel guilty about the cottonwood coming down. It was a fine straight clean trunked healthy girthed tree. I should have left it. No sign of any cankers or bark disease or blights. Other than its tall healthy growth, happy with where its seed took root. My Brother In Law wanted to cut down a huge oak about 200' ft away from it and I pointed to this tree instead and told him to have at it.
Reminds me of that Gary Larson joke where the farmer is standing in the chicken coup with an axe in his hand and hes scratching his chin as he looks at the crowd of chickens in the corner of the pen. There is one chicken standing there with a really long neck above all the others and hes saying, "Hmmm...which one shall it be...??"

 

[Woody Stover]

it practically lights with a match

That right there might get me to cut a small dead one that's about 100' from the back of the house.

Might as well clear cut it myself...right? Starting with a nice sized shagbark hickory.

I wouldn't do that...would be muy mucho bad karma.

 

[wh401]

I agree, most people I talk to can't stand poplar and feel it's not worth dealing with. As many others have said, I prefer to have it stock for the warmer months to save my good hardwoods for the nights or colder days.

 

[bag of hammers]

I even feel guilty about the cottonwood coming down.

I also really hate to cut into a healthy tree - I will drop one if it's starting to lean over the power line or towards the house, but even those are going to a good cause (heating my place). But I don't often have to cut down anything. With a bit of work, and a bit of luck, and being a weekend burner mostly, I can get away with scrounging right now. It's a great feeling to know I can warm the place up without laying waste to the natural landscape. I'm fortunate in that mother nature takes down a lot of what I burn - she's been helping out tremendously with the firewood supply over the past few years.

I have some ancient looking monster yellow birches on the back property that gave up a few of their healthy big branches to the wind, so I filled a couple of pallets. Maple tops - one tree hit by lightning it appears. Another uprooted and still on its side, from a windstorm in early 2012. Another that grew into a "fork", became home for bugs and critters, then it split. Tons of good wood above that. Quite a few of what I believe were mountain ash that didn't seem to have much resistance to anything, they all blew over years ago - the ones I got to before they'd gone all punky got burned up nicely in the old smoke dragon. One big cedar on the ground since sometime before I even got there - took a few feet off the end every fall and it supplied my starter wood for years before I finally split the last of it into kindling. Another at the shoreline finally gave in to the Jan / Feb west winds - more softwood and kindling. And then there's all the "junk" wood - like the poplar that lines the right of way along the road - that kind of junk I will take in a heartbeat. Nothing like scrounging up almost all your heat. I'm on a hardwood stand that could feed my woodstove for as long as I'm around but I'll only cut down what I need to cut, to prevent damage to the house. The properties that get cleared are an eyesore IMHO....

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We've burned popple off and on through the years but have not now for probably 6 or 7 years. Maybe longer. Used to cut one or two every year.

The good thing about this stuff is that new trees grow from the roots. Many trees can pop up from cutting down just one.

 

[bag of hammers]

We've burned popple off and on through the years but have not now for probably 6 or 7 years. Maybe longer. Used to cut one or two every year.

The good thing about this stuff is that new trees grow from the roots. Many trees can pop up from cutting down just one.

That's a great point. We used to joke about the poplar "weeds" out on hunting / fishing weekends 'cause they seemed to turn over / take over pretty fast in areas that were previously cleared. I've heard one reason poplar is gaining popularity for some trim amd mouldings is because it's highly renewable. It's like the Rodney Dangerfield of trees - "...no respect...."

 

[clemsonfor]

We've burned popple off and on through the years but have not now for probably 6 or 7 years. Maybe longer. Used to cut one or two every year.

The good thing about this stuff is that new trees grow from the roots. Many trees can pop up from cutting down just one.

This is true of most hardwoods. But keep in mind no root system will ever grow more above ground biomass than the roots can sustain. So it does not matter really if it is a single trunk or a tripple trunk. If everythinig is equal there should be the same amt of wood in that single trunk as there is in a tripple trunk.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

That's a great point. We used to joke about the poplar "weeds" out on hunting / fishing weekends 'cause they seemed to turn over / take over pretty fast in areas that were previously cleared. I've heard one reason poplar is gaining popularity for some trim amd mouldings is because it's highly renewable. It's like the Rodney Dangerfield of trees - "...no respect...."

I think that is yellow poplar; aka tulip poplar. One can usually find lots of lumber made from yellow poplar.