Choosing Trees to Cut

Adam Ulman
1/17/2011
How Do I Choose Which Trees to Cut?
Summer 2009 Issue of Northern Woodlands Magazine

This article, published in the Northern Woodlands Magazine in May 2009 discussed ways to choose which trees should be used for firewood. It explains why firewood should be selected and why other trees should be left for the fact of timber value that could be produced from certain trees.

Growing up in northern Wisconsin means cold winters and gathering firewood. I have never really taken the time to think about the legitimate reasons of why certain trees were selected to be firewood. I don’t think many people actually do think about it besides for the fact that it will burn good in the fireplace or the outdoor wood burner. However now that my major is Urban Forestry I am always thinking about why things are done or how something could be improved with the use of trees or forests. This article has also expanded my thoughts on something as simple as selecting trees that would make good firewood. Do other people have specific reasoning’s behind their choice of firewood trees?

This article explains how firewood should be selected while leaving other trees that will be a valuable timber product for the future. Someone that is going to cut firewood already knows that any hardwood trees will be a good source of firewood, however you can only make profitable saw timber from the best form of hardwoods. To start the process of cutting firewood the first step should be to identify the trees that will have the greatest timber value. This will be the trees with perfectly straight sound stems and free of defects. Once these high-valued trees have been identified then remove the nearby trees that are going to steal growth resources from them use those for firewood. This will allow the valued trees to thrive for future production of timber value and also create firewood from the competitors. Now selecting trees for firewood will be much easier to find and remove by looking for trees that have defects such as multi-stemmed trunks, gnarled trunks, poor shape, and diseased or dying trees. Another aspect to look at is whether the tree will be a future high-value tree and if not than it can be used as firewood. Finding trees that have a disease or defect may sometimes be hard to see visually. However a good way to notice them is if they have anything growing on the trunks such as mushrooms, fungus, and white or yellow blobs which will mean there is some part of the tree that is dead or rotten. The focus should not just be on the dying trees if there are some trees that have a serious defect they should be left in the woods, they will most likely be too rotten to make good firewood and will also create a good habitat for wildlife.

I can honestly say I never used all of these aspects into selecting firewood and don’t think that everyone out there cutting firewood from their own land use these steps. For those of you that have cut firewood before or still do, have you made your selections by these steps or similar to these ways? From my experience cutting firewood for my house or with friends we usually go out with the idea of getting the job done as fast as we can. However I will now take the time to select the best firewood with respect to the greatest growth for future trees in the woods.