That was in June 2021, we had a heat wave that shattered all previous records, with 3 days above 100 and the hottest was 108. Before that we’d only ever had a couple triple digit day in the entire climate record going back to 1870s, all 100+ days were since the 1990s.
We usually get no more than one or two days above 90° per year.
Good stuff @swincher and @a_Vivaldi .
To circle back to the topic at hand, I bench grafted 10 che the year before last in early May, around the time I was topworking apples, etc. I don’t recall the exact conditions. Our Mays can feature summer like heat or frost and snow, but Im pretty sure it was sort of average- 50’s, 60’s, 70’s days and 40’s,50’s nights. I had 100% take, so I wouldn’t sweat temp effects too much.
No way that live oak is harder than Osage. If worked both of them with tools. Osage is way harder.
One thing to keep in mind is Janka hardness is based on a very specific type of hardness (ability to resist a dent) and may not necessarily equate to resistance to cutting with a sharp tool. Here’s the exact way it is measured, according to Wikipedia:
It measures the force required to embed an 11.28-millimeter-diameter (7⁄16 in) steel ball halfway into a sample of wood. (The diameter was chosen to produce a circle with an area of 100 square millimeters, or one square centimeter.)
But with that in mind, every source I can find supports the claim that live oak has a higher Janka hardness than osage orange.
By live oak, do you mean southern live oak, which grows along the coast in the South, or one of the other live oak trees from out West? Only southern live oak is exceptionally hard. It’s also possible you worked wood from a hybrid–oaks in general are extremely promiscuous, and southern live oak hybridizes easily with a number of other white oaks.
Honestly, it seems to be a toss-up as to which one is harder. TheWoodDatabse is the only resource I’ve found that lists both, and it shows live oak as slightly harder, somewhat stiffer, considerably heavier, but marginally less strong. One point favoring live oak’s exceptional hardness is the fact that the USS Constitution is sheathed in it, and she literally bounced cannonballs off her sides on multiple occasions, most famously a point-blank full broadside from HMS Guerriere.
In fairness, the live-oak-clad USS Constitution is certainly not the toughest wood-built ship in history, that honor almost certainly lies with the RRS Discovery, Endurance, and the Fram, all three ships built expressly for exploring the icy Arctic and Antarctica. They were decked with greenheart, a tropical hardwood that, while somewhat lower in hardness than either live oak or osage orange, is mind-bogglingly stiff and strong. The Endurance’s bow was a ridiculous 52 inches thick.
@swincher, fair enough. I guess it’s safe to say that there’s different senses of the word hard.
@a_Vivaldi, I don’t know which type of live oak we have here in Central Texas. It is definitely a hard wood but doesn’t dull my tools as fast as when I’m making a bow out of osage, or Bois D’arc as we call it.
Ah, if you’re in Texas then it’s probably Quercus fusiformis which may or may not be a subspecies of southern live oak depending on who you ask. I don’t know if the Texas one is as hard and strong as the coastal population.
As for blunting tools, that actually got a lot to do with mineral deposits in the wood. Sure the toughness of the wood also matters, but woods with a lot of silica in them are basically like cutting through blocks of sandpaper, it’ll wipe the edge off in a hurry. Osage orange apparently has a lot of silica, per Ironwood or osage orange and Osage as stock wood??? | The Muzzleloading Forum
yeah, I think that is the case. Ive not worked osage myself, though Id love to get my hands on some. Ive worked black locust a fair bit, and its quite similar in many respects. Its also chock full of silica and when you cut it, it smokes, takes lots of effort to feed, and dulls your tools noticeably and quickly. “Strength” and even “hardness” are multi faceted properties. I was just splitting some today, and its so brittle and probe to splitting, that it sometimes splits adjacent to axe head just from the impact. In other respects though, its quite “strong”.
Yeah, wood is complicated.
I’ve seen Osage for sale at our hardwood stores, never bought any though. Never seen black locust. We have the trees, but they’re small, spindly things that never get big enough for lumber or even proper firewood on account of the borers.
Around here, sweetgum is the most abundant hardwood, it grows everywhere, grows fast, and gets quite big. The wood is medium density and hardness, pretty close to black cherry or tulip poplar, but man is it the devil to split. The grain is freakishly interlocked. A decent oak log will split more easily, despite being way harder and stronger. Twists like Chubby Checker as it dries too, so you don’t get good lumber out of it. Mostly gets used for pulp and chipboard I think.
Quite the pity, because it’d be a decent millworking lumber otherwise. It stains well, is in the Goldilocks zone for carpentry as far as how hard it is, smells nice, super affordable and sustainable. It’s even diffuse-porous, something you rarely see in temperate species.
But anyway, growing up, my dad mostly burned loblolly pine, which I realize it inadvisable, but it’s what we had in superabundance, and it splits, dries, and burns really well. Mixed in with that was a decent amount of sweetgum (especially after we got a hydraulic splitter) water oak, and some black cherry. Black cherry is still my favorite for the smell. Looks amazing too. Love that stuff.
I’m actually kinda surprised we didn’t have mulberry. It’s very common around here, but for whatever reason it doesn’t grow on my parent’s land. They may be too upland and excessively drained. Which would explain the native cactus thriving. I’ve heard mulberry is awesome, hot, firewood. It’s also pretty hard stuff, despite how fast it grows.
Which is a long way of coming back to che. Does anyone know if you can graft it to mulberry? They should be pretty closely related.
someone on the forum tried a bunch of che on mulberry and mulberry and che. they all were a bust. theres good photos and stuff, though Im not sure the thread offhand. it was a skilled and earnest effort, so it seems they’re not graft compatible
The cuttings of “Chul Ri” che that I struck just a few weeks ago are growing seemingly too vigorously, I don’t see how they could have enough roots to support this growth yet:
I’m sure I’ll find out sooner or later, though.
I’ve tried Norris cuttings several times already. They always put out top growth like that, then dry up, never any roots.
Supposedly che roots easily, but I’m not sure if that’s dormant cuttings or green cuttings.
The “California Dreaming” cuttings are barely showing swelling buds in that same amount of time, so I’m more hopeful they are growing roots before leaves.
Sorry to be off topic here, but is this how figs are grafted too? Or is fig grafting done during dormancy?
Going to attempt to root some Che “Norris” cuttings I am getting this week. I got two, probably going to try to root them the same way I did figs.
@sharq Maybe you already know, but thought I’d give the standard Che warning just in case.
On top of not rooting from cuttings reliably, own root Che tend to grow into a monster that people regret planting. You’d probs be way better tracking down some Osage Orange to graft onto.
