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  • From: "Jim Powell (Madison Environmental Justice Organization)" <jimpowell@mejo.us>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] what makes black locust last so long?
  • Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:12:46 -0500

This is great! Thanks.

I have a cord of black locust, and love the way it burns. It's from the previous owner of my land who hated black locust because she thought of it an an invasive. I also have a great black locust fence, that I sure hope last 100 years, as you write. We border some park land, and that's how they treat it too--an invasive to be rid of. It does grow like crazy, but then the pioneers here in south central Wisconsin planted in on purpose.

Echoing a previous question: any idea why it grows like crazy, at least on occasion? Apparently it didn't grow to like crazy for 150 years (when the pioneers planted it), but now it does (or people think it does).

JIM
Rock River Watershed
South Central Wisconsin

Jay Woods wrote:
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11242003-154755/unrestricted/etd.pdf

2.4 Secondary Metabolites of Black Locust and Effect on Animals
As mentioned previously, the heartwood of BL is primarily used for fence posts,
poles, railroad ties, and mine timbers and can endure for over 100 years in the soil. Its
remarkable decay resistance is due to high flavonoid concentrations (6% of dry weight),
specifically the constituents, robtin (15,000 ppm), robinetin (20,000 to 80,000 ppm) and
dihydrorobinetin (53,000 to 176,000 ppm)(Smith et al., 1989). Other, flavonoids present in
the heartwood are butein, butin, fisetin, fustin, and liquiritigenin (Duke, 2000)

On Monday 25 August 2008 12:59:21 pm paul wheaton wrote:
I have asked this question about 20 times in all sorts of different
places. Any time anybody seems like they might possibly know ...

So I ask it again here.

In case nobody knows, I hope that somebody might carry this question
with them and maybe some day spot an answer.

So we know that black locust wood lasts a long time. Old time farmers
would call it "stone wood" claiming that it would last longer than
stones when used as fence posts.

Why? Does it have some anti-fungal property? Anti-microbial? I've
heard some people say something about it could be because it is just
so dense - but that doesn't seem right either. Other dense woods seem
to decompose fairly rapidly.

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