Is butternut a gasification suppressant?

[Nofossil]

Not sure if this belongs in the Wood Shed or the Boiler Room.......

My brother and I have both noticed that butternut seems to interfere with gasification - more than about 25% in a load will cause noticeably weak and uneven secondary combustion. The butternut is bone dry, so it's not moisture that's causing it. Has anyone else seen this?

 

[pybyr]

guess that even if my butternut trees die of whatever mysterious blight is giving them a severe case of "failure to thrive" that I may not want to use them as firewood...

I cannot find it at the moment, but somewhere on the www I found USDA Forest Service research data on the btu content per cord of various species of wood, and was astonished at the extent to which butternut was at or near the bottom of the barrel-- I've always liked the tree and wood for other purposes

perhaps it is the sheer lack of heat value; from working with the stuff a small amount for woodworking, it seems to have less volatiles (no real aromatic odor) than almost any other wood I can recall, which may give rise to a lack of much to work with for pyrolysis?

 

[Adios Pantalones]

It's a first cousin of black walnut. Any issue with BW?

Severe problems with disease killing them off.

 

[Chris S]

I know a woodcarver in Sugar Loaf who loves to carve butternut. perhaps he'll trade you piece for piece with the oak he's burning.

 

[slowzuki]

I have noticed burning butternut is about like burning dry punky wood. Not a lot of heat value.

Butternuts are being attacked by a fungus that basically prys the bark off them. Once it makes it all the way around the tree dies. The is a big project here to save rootstock so once the disease runs its course there will be enough genetically diverse material to reestablish.

I was blown away at how recently chestnut was a dominant species in the US forests and how quickly is disappeared due to disease.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Chestnuts still sprout from old stumps, but they die before getting very big. I've seen them maybe 8 feet tall and looking healthy. I think white ash is next, barring some miracle. The Emerald Ash Borer continues to infest ash trees in a growing section of the Midwest and Northeast, and it kills every one. I love ash and I probably would have loved chestnut, had I been lucky enough to see timber-sized specimens. Butternut, as you noted, Ken, is on its way out as well.

 

[penfrydd]

American Chestnut will live long enough to fruit, so there's still hope that we can circumvent the fungus that kills it. As a kid, our farm had tons of old split rail chestnut fences in the woods. When I'd camp during the winter, they made hot fires and split like butter. Of course, I wish I had the fences now...

There was one lone 60 ft tall chestnut stump in a corner of an old pasture that had grown up to white and black birch. That stump had been dead since the blight hit in 1910. Most of the dead chestnut was blown down in the '36 or '38 hurricane (I wasn't around...)

Chestnut is, like elm, loaded with creosote; more than you can imagine. Is butternut as well?