Cottonwood?

I'm 99% sure cottonwood is a burn in the field or let rot and I have never tried it. Tree guy called and said he has one coming up. I don't want his trash I have to deal with but at the same time want to be on his radar when he has good wood. I told him he can bring it but I'm sure I will regret it.

Should I call him back and tell him I don't want it?

Depends on the stage it’s at it has a point where it’s not that bad to burn I call it the bowling pin stage with that solid clunk to it but it’s discolored or soft burn it in one big pile then. The limbs often make better burning material then the main trunk themselves.

Cottonwood makes very good sheeting for barns. A friend of mine, who has a sawmill, sheets all of his barns with cottonwood. The advantage of cottonwood is that lots of tall wide trees are available. Once the wood is dry, it's very light weight and easy to hold in place while its being nailed. As long as you nail through the cottonwood, into a harder wood, it will stay in place. Cottonwood does not hold a nail well on its own.

Cottonwood makes good butts for thrown weapons such as spears, knives and axes. Almost all the thrown weapons events I have gone to use cottonwood. Weapons stick well and don't bounce back. Wet cottonwood can take a lot of abuse and the cuts close well when you pull the weapons out. Large rounds of cottonwood are typically free to cheap. If your sons like throwing weapons, you should mount a cottonwood butt for them,, about 4 feet high.

Keith

Nothing wrong with it if it's dry but not rotten. It burns hot but doesn't last real long. I know two guys who favor cottonwood over ash. They have hotrod chainsaws and it makes them tingle when they can roar thru cottonwood with their high performance saws.

Im assuming its green now.

It burns fast and leaves a lot of ash in the stove. We are in hard up area for firewood and folks here pass on it when they can burn spruce.

I know a guy in the lower 48 that that makes syrup and he uses cottonwood exclusively for the boiling. He says it burns hotter.

If that's the case I'd definitely pass it up.

A cord of cottonwood produces 2 cords of ash. Keeps you warm just cleaning the stove and packing out the ash!

Green cotton wood. -- PASS

But to reiterate.....good dry cottonwood burns hot and feels good. There's been times I've been darn glad to have it.

Maybe mix it with good wood to just get rid of it next year? Like 1 piece to 5-7 others in the wood burner.

That's what I was thinking if I end up with it. I have an outdoor stove so can burn things I wouldn't in the house.

I don't mind taking some crap wood as long as he also brings good stuff also. That's the catch. I don't want to be the stop for all the trash. Esp since he has a Crain and they will be in large logs I will have to spend time cutting to move it.

We use it almost exclusively its plentiful here. It burns hot and leaves alot of ash. Way better than 2:50 propane.

Keith
Are you talking outside sheeting? Or does it need siding over it? I figured it would rot in the weather, I've used it inside, if it dries you bout have to pre drill to drive a nail in it.

If you have a wood boiler outside, cottonwood should be just fine to toss in there. If it is as big as some we have here, it may take a good long while to dry if you don't cut it up into smaller stuff. It does burn hot when dry, like aspen, and it does ash up a bunch. It is the newspaper of firewood. I'd grab it, you sure as heck can't beat the price, plus it is delivered! Bonus! It will burn great in temps like we are haveing now, when you need the chill taken off the morning, but don't need a glowing bed of coals to take you through the afternoon and evening before you toss it full for the night. As Broadway Joe & Jimmy "J J' Walker would say.......It's freeeeeeeeee!

When the choice is cottonwood or nothing; I take cottonwood every time.

If you don't like it; get your money back.

If someone is gonna bring firewood to my house I'll take whatever they bring. You don't want him to pass on you next time when the wood is good.

good news is it burns

bad news is it looses about 60% of it's weight as it dries

it starts near the heaviest wood per cord green and ends one of the lightest.

it has half the heat of oak for a cord

the up side is when it is dry it makes good kindling

and it typically splits fairly well

it is very similar to poplar poplar is actually worse

it does make decent kindling to get other wood burning , but it has about as much heat in it as a roll of toilet paper weighs about the same dry ok a little more

her is a list of wood and btu per cord and expected weight

https://forestry.usu.edu/forest-products/wood-heating

I will tool the dice and see if he brings some better stuff later. Sounds like I can mix it in and will be ok. I think he said it was about 3' I'm guessing across so I will takes Keiths advice and make some target's also. My boys will love that. Knifes and ax throwing they love. Well honestly anything that moves a projectile.

I hate it when someone ask for wood then they only want nice oak. If they are running a crane take it all, probably be 70% softwood but you can get some great valuable saw logs off crane crews.

This right here...if you don't care for it, pile it up and cook some wieners with your kids!

if they drop it off burn it

it would make good outdoor camp fire wood

most of the time people want a camp fire that lasts and hour or so , not all night coals

if they are bringing your 3 foot in diameter logs , noodle them down to pieces you can lift

Yet it has almost exactly the same BTU per dry pound as red oak, if my math is right.

I once read: Pound for pound perfectly dry wood all burns the same.

Yeah, a pound of cottonwood will be bigger than a pound of lots of other stuff, but, pound for pound.

Buy your dry wood by the ton and you'll never get cheated, buy it by the cord and that guy can stack 1/2 of it air. Split wood stacks to a greater volume than solid wood doesn't it, lots more air spaces?

Thats a fact tjm. There's guys asking 160 for a pickup load. Probly making 15 at McD dropping fries too.

I learned that when I was very young I got close to half a load more on a load bringing it home round instead of splitting it in the woods between less air space and being able to stack it much higher round.

Try smoking fish with punky dry cottonwood and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
If you want to use it for firewood, split it and let it dry for at least a year.
Mill some of it up for the boards that go around the top of dump truck dump boxes and you'll have a steady stream of return customers. It doesn't split up and bust like other lumber, it just sort of erodes away.

My friend James uses cottonwood as inside sheeting. Cottonwoods are the most common really big trees in our area and they have little commercial value to loggers. We both have some truly massive cottonwoods on our farms.

It is kind of pretty as sheeting. It's very pale, close to white and sometimes gets some faint lines reminiscent of tiger maple.

Keith

The indians used it for the fires inside their teepees because it doesn't pop when it burns. This means no surprise wake ups in the middle of the night to frantically remove a small cinder from your butt crack.

All wood is good enough for the fire ring. Plus, if you want to give camp wood away, cottonwood doesn't have diseases like elm and ash.

The folks here use cottonwood for dry smoking salmon. Mild flavor, not harsh like alder can be.

I once tried it for smoked moose meat. It reminded me of dryfish too much.

Here, aspen and cottonwood are routinely used to clean brick stoves from resinous soot that forms when you use conifers for firewood, because they produce a very clean hot flame that burns down the sticky deposits. We also use them to make benches for banyas/saunas, because they stay cool to the touch even when it is very hot inside.

I dont know what cottonwood is.I burn poplar and bam.Poplar burns good in the cabin when mixed with dry spruce in the fall.
Bam makes a quick hot fire in the skinning shed.Good to warm up the work area without cooking you out if your skinning shed is insulated.

Bam is probably balsam poplar. Cottonwood has much wider leaves. Both can be used to make Balm of Gilead. Cottonwood gets its name from the huge amount of white, cotton like fluff it produces to carry its tiny seeds. The seeds can travel really far on the wind. There's some cottonwoods across the state highway from me, probably seventy yards from where I garden and I still get hundreds of cottonwood trees in my garden every year. Cottonwood grows very fast, tall and straight in wet areas.

Some of the cottonwood trees in my low area are close to 5' in diameter. I have seen some that are well over 6' in diameter.

Keith

Boco you have to go to southern Ontario to get into cottonwood trees or onto the prairies where it is a riverbank habitat growing tree.
Tatiana interesting use of it in the saunas. Any pictures of it and this and this thread would light up like a Christmas tree

Homesteads that used it for lumber still stand, as long as it does not get wet it holds its strength.

Cross stacking is a lot of work, to cheat a customer.

Just about any other configuration actually has a defined definition of volume a legal cord of 128 cu Ranging from 110 cu ft cut, not split, and neatly stacked to 175 cu ft "tossed".

Cotton wood is the biggest trees I ever seen beaver work on, in MT,ND and AK.

Populus deltoides is the cottonwood we have here in the mountains of Idaho. Not my favorite for burning in the woodstove, as the ash content means you shovel out the stove almost daily. When punky, it does a great job of smoking fish. Also, I've used it for making canoe paddles, and it works very well.

I've used it for stretchers. Takes push pins well. Early explorers preferred cottonwood and aspen over conifers for campfires since it doesn't pop and shoot sparks and tastes better than conifer smoke on cooked food. Beaver thrive on it.

Cottonwood (Poplar)

The cottonwood—also known as the poplar—is a tall tree with a spreading crown, named for its cotton-like seeds. The diverse poplar family includes the quaking aspen, which boasts the widest range of any North American tree, and the Plains cottonwood, which was the only tree many early settlers met as they forged westward through America's prairies. Today as in centuries past, the cottonwood offers welcome shade, as its powerful trunk divides into thick branches and opens into a spreading crown. Many cottonwoods grow from 70 to 100 feet tall, and the tree’s quick growth rate and adaptability to many soils and climates have made it an age-old friend to the American people.

The Cottonwood’s Place in History

Few sights were more welcome to America’s early pioneers than the cottonwood. As they pushed westward with their wagons, these brave men and women found food for their livestock in the tree's leaves, as well as shade for themselves and timber for their dwellings. The beauty of the cottonwood leaves as they turned in the wind may also have revived memories of eastern forests, and sustained many a flagging spirit. On the more practical side, cottonwood trunks provided dugout canoes, and the tree’s bark was used to produce both forage for horses and a bitter medicinal tea. And in regions with few trees, the very noticeable cottonwoods often served as gathering places and trail markers, and as sacred objects for several Plains tribes. Today, cottonwood is most commonly used in making plywood, matches, crates, boxes, and paper pulp.

Some Common Species

Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is a slender, graceful tree, as attractive for its rounded mature crown and delicate branches as for its white bark and shimmering leaves. The “silver dollar” leaves, hanging from long, flexible leafstalks, turn in even the slightest breeze, reflecting light from their lustrous upper surface. This medium-sized tree, usually from 40 to 50 feet tall with a 20 to 30-foot spread, is found naturally in Alaska and lower California as well as from the New England states southward to Pennsylvania and westward to Missouri. It is valued for pulp production and for its role as one of the first trees to appear in areas that have been struck by fire and other natural disasters. But for many, the quaking aspen is just as valuable for its beauty, with its rustling leaves and striking white bark, growing along the sunny edges of America’s meadows and forests. (Grows in hardiness zones 1 to 7.)

The Plains cottonwood (Populus sargentii) has long been prized in the Great Plains states, where it was often the earliest and tallest tree to grow at the time of Western settlement. This attractive tree, which grows from 50 to 75 feet tall, is found throughout the Great Plains in locations with moist, low ground. It continues to be a source of shelter and shade across the region, building upon its legendary status as a friend to the early pioneers. (Grows in hardiness zones 3 to 9.)

I've mixed it in my outside stove lots of time, and don't work bad at all. Burn some hardwood with it so you can level out a bed of coals to start the next burn. I have found that in an outside boiler, that wood selection doesn't sseem to make the burn last longer, it just varies the amount of coals for the next stoking. Split it and leave till next year if green, and mix.

Those are very nice looking paddles.

. Thanks for all the info everyone. Always an amazing amount of information And knowledge. Here.

And I thought cottonwood was a useless trash wood all these years.

lots of useless trash has usefulness as long as you don't pay too much for it

some things aren't even a bargain when free , free dogs come to mind

there is an old saying of the three similarities in life;
one is Old Milwakie beer ( altered as not to offend some beer drinkers)
two is green unseasoned popular
and three is; a blond in a canoe on Saturday night

they are all ----near water

Exactly: burns fast and leaves lots of ash. Pass on it if you can most anything else. Balsom fir not much better.

How is the ash for making lye.
Wood ashes are great attraction for snaring rabbits in winter.

Do you cold smoke any meat or fish? It is the favored wood for smoking in Alaska. Works in a hot smoker too.

AKA sex by the seashore........

Actually if you leave it in the round you will get more of it. It's a little counter intuitive. Here's an example; fill a beaver drowning sack with sand (sand is just little rocks packed together seemingly as tight as you can get it). Then fill a sack with fist size or larger rocks. Then see which one weighs more; I'll bet you already know.