Birch wood

ThePunk

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Would disinfected birch sticks and branches from outside be safe for an OBT?
 

TJ 68

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I don't know that its Bad for Ts. I know it can be toxic for some mammals to chew on it, and some claim it repels Insects. I never use pine or cedar But I don't know about Birch . I stick with Fruit Trees, they seem to be the Safest
 

viper69

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If I recall birch molds easily- not an issue per se, but annoying to many.
 

The Snark

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If I recall birch molds easily
Very easily. It is a common forest recovery phase after logging has cleared the environment of most or all native trees. Both natural and introduced it is considered a weed hardwood. Grows very rapidly, has a short life span, and quickly decomposes. If used in commercial wood products it has to be treated with residual fungicides as it readily harbors mold spores.
 

viper69

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Very easily. It is a common forest recovery phase after logging has cleared the environment of most or all native trees. Both natural and introduced it is considered a weed hardwood. Grows very rapidly, has a short life span, and quickly decomposes. If used in commercial wood products it has to be treated with residual fungicides as it readily harbors mold spores.
sure is pretty
 

The Snark

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sure is pretty
I'm thinking of the thousands of acres of old growth fir and redwood forests that were clearcut then Birch allowed to grow back, completely inhibiting the native tree regrowth. choking spawning waterways and permanently altering the ecosystem. Then the USFS goes in or allows helicopter spraying of herbicides to control the birch which often enters the streams and rivers.
Then people end up like they are right now, no salmon or steelhead and no salmon fishing season - cancelled.

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Smotzer

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I mean birch is very soft so I don’t think it’s a great choice for a vivarium or terrarium, but you don’t need to disinfect it before using it, if you do you’ll likely have way worse mold of it’s used in something with moisture in the tank.
 

Matt Man

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I'm thinking of the thousands of acres of old growth fir and redwood forests that were clearcut then Birch allowed to grow back, completely inhibiting the native tree regrowth. choking spawning waterways and permanently altering the ecosystem. Then the USFS goes in or allows helicopter spraying of herbicides to control the birch which often enters the streams and rivers.
Then people end up like they are right now, no salmon or steelhead and no salmon fishing season - cancelled.

View attachment 443819
or when a former VP says "Salmon don't vote" and allows the river to be so drained it completely wipes out a spawning class......or ranchers being allowed to cut pasture to the rovers edge and the cattle fill the REDDs full of silt....

though the fires and mudslides out here served as a great illustrator. "So fire wiped out all the trees, the rains came and now your roads are 3" deep in Mud" "So switch out fire to 'clear cut' and switch out road to 'pristine, clear, stream with gravel for spawning' "

in other words "Don't get me started brother"
 

The Snark

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n other words "Don't get me started brother"
Amen. As the song says, "Don't it always seem to go but you don't know what you got till it's gone They paved paradise and put in a parking lot."

And a sad and bitter moment for me. Just received an email from a fellow wildland firefighter in which she mentioned her grandson, following the FF family tradition, was killed on the job during the recent nasty Calif fire season. Damn that hits hard, accompanying bits and pieces of ancient memories of the San Jac. fire only a couple dozen miles from where he was killed.
Put your life on the line to preserve and protect the environment only for people to trash it like it was a playground.
 

Matt Man

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and not understanding how warmer winters helps bark beetle survival and the speed of dead trees ready to blow. Sorry to hear about the loss, and yes, we lose good people protecting stuff so idiots can exploit it.
 

The Snark

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But back on BIrch, the raw untreated wood could be useful for bio-active enclosures where a hyperactive population of detrivores is desirable. It's very common up in the fog belt of the north coast for a birch log to turn into a soft crumbly mass within a year or so, priming the substrate with an abundance of food. It would certainly be loaded with a variety of molds and fungi.

The anecdote. I got called in to assist in the ER around midnight. The local plywood mill got their plumbing mixed up and the fungicide got injected into the water supply. Of particular interest, into the coffee machine. How long this had been going on was unknown so we had all three shifts from the mill, around 80 people, come into the ER for testing and observation. Our graveyard shift; a chaotic mad house until well after dawn.
Fungicide is an integral part of making the birch skins on the plywood sheets. Untreated birch becomes mottled gray and black from spores within a few days.
 
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