Girdiling pine trees

[Sam Puhalovich]

I've only read about 'girdling' to kill-off pine trees. I have 5 pine trees that are close to the house and growing roots under the house ... and I'd rather be rid of them. Three of them are quite large are are about 26" diameter around the bark just above ground. While pine is not my favorite to work with: I expect that the trunks will yield some very clear cuts for the 1st 12' that could be used for a variety of table-tops and should not be passed-up. At this time I am considering to have the branches removed and the canopies 'topped' ... the trunks girdled ... and let them dry-in-place for about 4 months before taking them down ... and wondering what I'll have at that time. I don't expect to have fully-dried ready-to-use material; however, whatever reduction in weight by then would be wholly welcome to improve the 'handling' characterisitics.

TIA for any any advice and shared experience.

[Tom Yaegle]

I have girdled many trees. But most do not die that fast. Are these white pine? I had one along my drive that I trimmed to keep it away from the electric lines. It died so I took it down to saw it and it had blue stains in the wood. I would think you may have the same problem letting it stand dead.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I would think that cutting it and stickering it right away would be the better method. Girdling is something that is generally used if you want to kill a lot of trees without going to the trouble of cutting them down, but if you're going to cut it down anyway I don't see a benefit. I doubt much drying would take place before the log is cut into boards.

[Steve Demuth]

First, killing them and leaving them standing in place before felling them will yield you no advantage in terms of getting usable wood from them. They won't die that fast, and 6 months standing attached to the roots with bark still on them will not dry the wood measurably.

If you want good wood suitable for furniture from them, have them felled by a professional, and then get them sawn and kiln dried. If they were hardwoods, air drying might be worth the time and effort but with pine you run the real risk that air dried material will not have the pitch "set" and when you go to use the wood, you have sticky, unfinishable mess. You might be surprised, however, even after that effort, at the poor quality of what you get. It's hard to tell without looking at them, but pines in low competition settings may well have grown very quickly, and have huge growth rings that make for wood unsuited for furniture - I've sawn some White Pines here that have 3/8" or more annual growth rings, and they are very difficult to manage, and not all that attractive. Good for construction lumber, but not much else. Or yours may be great - really hard to tell until you cut them.

[Bill Dufour]

That will cause mold and fungus in the standing trunks. Making blue stain lumber which some people like the look. Rubber wood trees used to be unusable because it fungus stained in a few days. Until some smart guy invented a way to treat the wet planks and stop the staining process. I think there is a window of just 24 hours or so.
Rubber wood furniture did not exist until around 1990.
BilL D

[Sam Puhalovich]

Thank you ... one-and-all.
It's clear from the replies that the best procedure is to take them down ... and get them 'processed'. So let-it-be-written ... so-let-it-be-done! They will be felled and cut to lengths by a professional as the trees are at least 50' tall. I will remove the bark and take them to a sawmill. I bought the lot in 2004, it was thick with forest, and that being the reason that the 1'st 14 - 16' does not show any indication of branches. It'll be interesting to see what the outer 19 growth-rings will look-like as over the last 18 years we've had some major droughts and only a few years with more then the 34" per year rainfall.

[Geoff Emms]

Very interesting, I've not heard the term Girdling before, here in Australia we call it "ring barking" and, historically, was used extensively in clearing native forest for farm establishment.
One unique piece of equipment used by some ring barkers was a poison axe. This had a copper tube let into the back of the handle with a spray nozzle at the head and a trigger pump at the rear end, this was connected by a flexible tube to a tank the axe man carried on his back. In use, the axe would be struck into the tree then the trigger pulled to spray herbicide into the wound.
Cheers,
Geoff.

[Bill Dufour]

Overzealous use of string trimmers can kill mature trees by girdling the trunk at grass level. Normally takes several years to get it completely circled deep enough to die.
Bill D