What is it with yellow pine?

[Greg]

I bet he is talking about SYP. It gets so hard you can't drive a nail in it.

[Charlie Self]

George Cawthon responds:

SYP, AKA southern yellow pine, has zip to do with Ponderosa pine. Mostly found from Jersey's Pine Barrens on south to Georgia, it is a highly figured wood, the hardest U.S. pine, hardens with age, and is a royal PITA to work. SYP that is CCA treated doesn't dry out until it's been in place 103 years, or so it sometimes seems.

On the Janka hardness scale, long leaf SYP is 870. Cherry is 950.

Charlie Self "They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program." George W. Bush, St. Charles, Missouri, November 2,

2000

[mel]

Pinus Ponderosa is technically a yellow pine and is often called Western Yellow Pine hence his confusion but I suspect you probably already knew this.

Southern Yellow pine is most commonly comprised of 4 different genus. Pinus Palustris (Longleaf)and Pinus Enchinta (Shortleaf) are the 2 genus that every keeps referring to as "old growth". Today, Pinus Taeda (Loblolly) and Pinus Elliottii (Slash) are the most common for managed forests due to the hardiness and growth rate. This is the explanation for differing grain in today's yellow pine vs. yesteryear's. Granted accelerated growth due to introduced nutrients and forestry management has played some part but these 2 genus simply grow faster in the first place.

Did you know that most "softwoods" grown at lower altitudes will be harder (denser) than at higher altitudes, yet most "hardwoods" will be the exact opposite?

[Leon]

Southern Yellow Pine. SYP.

[Pat Barber]

[fredfighter]

Uh Huh. Southern Yellow Pine is one of the densest, hardest softwoods, the only commercially commonplace softwood species comporable in strength to Doug Fir.

I think that as the wood ages teh sap polymerizes increasing the strength and hardness.

The Chromated Copper Arsenate treatment makes it denser, maybe harder too. It may be a good thing that you didn;t use a power planer. Probably it would corrode the heck out of the planer head.

[mel]

actually yellow pine is considerably stronger than Doug fir

[George E. Cawthon]

I've kind of figured P. ponderosa is not what the discussion is about. However, none of my books on wood and trees, and I have several, mention southern yellow pine. The problem with common names is they are often indefinite and confusing. And syp, seems to be a rather regional designation. More at response to Mel. Thanks.

[George E. Cawthon]

Thanks for the scientific names and discussion, Mel. As I explained none of my books mention SYP, which apparently is an industry and mill designation. Unfortunately that is fairly common, and common names often are useless to a non regional person. In the west, yellow pine is Pinus ponderosa, red fir is actually Douglas fir, white fir can be several species and Tamarack is most often used for and larch is most often called Tamarack.

N> Pinus Ponderosa is technically a yellow pine and is often called Western

[George]

Good grief. You're sitting in front of a reference library. ANY search engine would have flashed SYP in your face if you looked for pine lumber, pine classification, or similar. It is a woodworkers' and wood producers' designation.

FWIW, my 1949 _ TREES Yearbook of Agriculture_ lists the species indicated as southern yellow pines.

[Luigi Zanasi]

On Friday 28 Jan 2005 6:51 pm, [e-mail] scribbled:

After forest fires, I see many spruce and pines (with bark burnt off) where the grain clearly goes around in a spiral.

[fredfighter]

I have to ask what you mean by 'the tree rotating as much as 360 degrees/year'. Do you mean that if I mark a brank that is pointing north and come back six months later that same branch may be pointing south?

There are a number of trees, especially tropical exotics where the grain grows in a spiral around the trunk and reverses dirtection (clockwise or counter-closkwise) every other year or something like that. But the whole friggin tree spinnin like a top? That's a bit much to swallow.

[Duane Bozarth]

What does that mean? I was confused by your previous explanation, too...

[mel]

new growth rotates

[mel]

sighhhh.... the tip of each limb grows in a spiral pattern as length is added to the limb. if you are still confused just forget I brought it up

[George E. Cawthon]

Your criticism is probably justified. However, lots of stuff on the Internet is pure BS and I don't search everything. And you are right, I already figured it was a wood producers term. Too bad everyone can get on board with species.

I think I have that Yearbook somewhere, at least I have looked at it in libraries and it was great. There are some great older Yearbooks of Agriculture. Unfortunately some of the later ones were worthless, notably those produced during Jimmy Carter's administration. Apparently some idiot with a media degree got involved instead of those with an Ag or science degree.

I still say it is a regional thing. Not everyone lives in the east or the southeast.

[George E. Cawthon]

Forget it mel. Some people just don't know anything about plant growth are too unobservant to realize that cells are fixed in position and that new growth may be at an angle to the old cells. There are still people that believe branches move up from the ground as the tree grows. Good grief! don't they every look at the trees that grow around them. If they have enough experience to type here, they are old enough o have been around the same tree for many years.

And no, it didn't bother me that you mixed up genus and specie, we all make mistakes. Your "error" was that you contradicted what many were saying about the availability of clear wood. Shame on you. We all know that we are in a mess with fewer trees, the fish, ducks, elk, deer, etc. are dying, endangered by global warming, rising seas, massive climatic changes, greatest natural disasters ever, the greatest loss of species in the history of the world, etc. etc.

Sorry for dumping, but people are SO predictable (and stupid).

[Duane Bozarth]

OK, that I knew...not what I thought you said, is all...

And George, chill... ;)

[mel]

snipped from George's post-"We all know that we are in a mess with fewer trees, the fish, ducks, elk, deer, etc. are dying,"

now I'm just getting hungry

[David Hall]

I don't know about where you guys are, but here in PA we have FAAAAAR too many deer. There are many more than 100 years ago. There are several thousand "interactions" between deer and vehicles each year. We also have an over abundance of geese fouling (ha!) up fields, yards golf courses, etc. Don't know about elk, but fish seem abundant hereabouts as do trees.

Dave Hall a proud member of PETA (yeah, that one, not the one that thinks animals should have more rights than people)