using seasoned fire wood

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platypusninja96

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So here in PA there is a ton (and I mean a ton!) of fire wood for sale. Is this a usable resource for breeding? If so, how would I go about preparing the wood so that it can be used?

Thanks,

Nathan

 
If there's no chemicals added to it then go ahead. You are going to need a log with significant decay if you want to use it for substrate or for female stag beetles to lay eggs in. Search the piles of logs for light and spongy wood that you can easily break off with your fingers. If you discover any, you can submerge it in a bucket filled with water to change the texture. You can even boil the wood in water as a method of heat treatment. If you don't find any decayed lumber, you can try inoculate the logs with mushroom plugs to make white rotting wood quicker than it would take in the wild. However this is a more in depth process. Since there is a lot of woods in Pennsylvania, you're better off just searching for rotting logs in the forests. I live on the east coast and I happen to find a lot even though I live in a small state.

 
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There is unfortunately no easy or quick way to process wood meant for firewood to make it useable in breeding. You can try burying the wood and allowing soil organisms to break it down, but you'll find that the outside will decay much faster than the inside and larger soil organisms will probably begin eating the wood as fast as it decays.

I would recommend trying to colonize the wood pieces with mycelium from some fast-growing mushroom species if you want the pieces to break down more evenly throughout the wood. I've found turkey tail fungi to colonize logs most quickly, but it will may take years to get a piece of wood to be soft enough for use. Different types of wood take different amounts of time to decay due to the difference in wood density. Denser pieces will take longer to become fully colonized and longer to break down.

I've used plug spawn to inoculate logs with edible species of mushrooms. The logs will produce mushrooms for you to eat for years until the mycelium has used up the nutrients it's capable of utilizing. At that point, the wood should be soft enough to use.

 
sadly i think fire wood is mesquite witch isn't a very good wood at all since i live were its native and its very hard to decay because it doesn't hold water to well and even if you do mange to get it to decay nothing likes it, only a species of wood borer, idk the latin name but the common is wasp beetle

 
Mesquite, hickory, spruce, pine, and all trees with volatile oils are generally poor larval food.

Do you have an oak tree in an urban area such as a park? Orin says in the ultimate guide that branches and bark from trees work just as well as logs if there is no forest near you.

 
Volatile oils usually off-gas during the period of time required to properly season the wood. Seasoned wood has had most of the sap, oils, and moisture to evaporate. All plants have volatile oils. It's produced constantly in trees to help protect the living tissue from herbivores and the dead wood beneath the surface from decomposers. Any volatile oils that remain usually continue to offgas or breakdown in the process of making it useable in rearing larvae that eat rotten wood. Of course, some types of wood will remain unpalatable even after decomposition due to chemicals traces, so some types of wood like Mesquite should be avoided.

The type of firewood available tends to depend on your location. Wood from coniferous trees is generally avoided as firewood because they have resin that causes oily smoke and because their lower density means they burn faster as well as hotter. Most places say what kind of firewood is being sold. I'd definitely go with trying to find already rotten wood above trying to process firewood if there were the option. Firewood must be rehydrated before inoculation with mycelium and it's always easier to use recently cut wood than firewood.

 
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