osage orange

[SmokesAhoy]

does anyone have this growing on their property?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera
i wanted to try growing it for natural fencing and wood heat, not sure if it will do good where i live though. but if anyone has a few of the seed balls hanging out at their house i will pay for one of those usps boxes you can stuff with stuff for 1 price shipping

 

[BigBonner]

How many do you need ?
It grows on my farm . The fruits are supposed to keep away spiders .
DO NOT PLANT THIS TREE ANYWHERE ON YOUR PROPERTY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

It is bad you can't get rid of it unless you spray . Cut off the tree and the bottom will grow like crazy . The wood is good for heating but cutting it is hard for a saw .They have 1/2 inch thorns on the limbes and trunk and will make you sore if you get stuck with them . Once they dry out they are extremely hard to cut . Some that are big enough will make the best fence post but you have to use them green , once dried out you can't hardly drive a steeple in them .

I will look and see if some fruits are still green .If you still want some I can send them to you . But I wouldn't get them started .

Making a fence is how the osage orange got started here . Start them in a row and they scatter everywhere . The fruits are useless but may keey spiders out .

 

[SmokesAhoy]

that's perfect i've been meaning to put in another order for your awesome burley anyhow, this can kill 2 birds at once

i dont really have any worry about it getting out of hand, i am at the edge of it even being possible to grow here, it says hardy to zone 5 and i just barely qualify for zone 5, so it might not survive our winters anyway.

the heating value is similar to coal and that is why i am interested in it, since supposedly it grows fast. but a bonus is the sturdy natural barb wire it provides too. I have about an acre in the front of my property next to a busy road that i didnt plant anything on this season after reading how people that grew it too close to the road had it ripped up and stolen or torn down and destroyed by anti tobacco. the thought of natural barb wire fence around the perimeter of my tobacco patch gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. hehe.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

as to how many, i dunno, maybe 4 or 5 of those balls, whatever fits into the usps box. i want to germinate about 400 or so and have them spaced about every 2 feet along the front and side of the property, maybe 2 or 3 rows deep. not sure how many seeds in a ball though, i've never actually seen this outside of the internet so no clue as to the size of the fruit or the number of seeds inside, or the weight etc. just wanna get a bunch for several attempts at getting it started.

 

[LeftyRighty]

Osage orange or hedge apple was planted in the 1800's throughout the midwest & west as a fence row - was very good at keeping everything but small critters from passing. It grows somewhat fast, as a hedge or shrub, but will take decades to get to firewood size. It's pretty much immune to pests & desease. As mature trees trees, they take up a lot of real estate - a typical fence row may be 40 to 50+ feet wide or more, as it's a real pain to get near it, to trim or cut or even mow around. You'll need lots of protective gear if you work around it, as the thorns are nasty, nasty, nasty.
Yeah, it is great firewood. About the highest in BTU's per pound, and very slow burning. But it has to be cut & split green, tough even then. I've found that most land owners in the midwest, that still have stands of it, will let you cut for free, as long as you haul off the trimming too.

 

[BigBonner]

They are the size of a soft ball , And weigh a pound maybe two . Once you get them started they will spread out and start new trees all over the country . My farm grows them good on the hills . I bush hogged this year. In two years time the prouts will gro 7 to 10 feet tall . Mowing won't kill them they will sprout from the roots or stump and grow . Cows do sometimes eat them , They will lodge in the cows troat or stomach, most usually passing on through but some times not .

As per seeds in one ?
I have never had the desire to open one up to look .

 

[BarG]

Osage orange or Bodark

Great bow making lumber if split into staves and worked by hand while green or semi air dried, hard as hell when dry but pretty stable, not to hard to work with todays carbide, sands well, glues well and takes a nice polish. will attach pics later. Had the opportunity to use some recentlly that was about 2 years air dried, 7/4" x 14-16" width with bark edges. An 8' piece would have a pretty good curve with the stock I was given. obtaining Long lengths could be a problem for woodworking projects. your right about it growing back after cutting but the thorns in this part of the country dissapear it seems after the tree matures makes great fence posts due to rot resistance. If you can get a large dia. tree definitly salvage any large trunk sections and limbs and take to your local sawyer, you won't regret it. To air dry allow 1 yr. per 1" and another year for each 1/2 " over 1". Try to buy at lumber yard or order and see value for yourself. Mine was what I call backyard lumber which is what I've been making a point to collect. Just a carpenter from hell giving his opinion.

 

[BarG]

Smokesahoy if someone don't send you one soon let me know and i'll see if I can't round up a couple for ya! There native here and are'nt as invasive as say some other species of trees.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

well i would like the fence action and i dont think i will be alive/or here long enough to worry about the negatives from growing osage. i was thinking once the fence is established i could go out there and pull 1 inch round prunings from the fence and burn with the pine/birch/oak/maple that is already on the property. I dont expect them to become 50 foot tree's just a very long fence/coppice that i can harvest continually for more free btu's.

if i grow it along the road frontage (3 sides: 1 busy road, 1 dead end road, 1 easement) that will give me a couple thousand feet of fence. just by starting at one end and collecting 1" clippings cut to length (whatever is not too snarled) on the spot should give me a decent quantity. it's not the end all be all in heating, just another drop in the bucket as i see it, while also having a fence around the place. so thorns in this situation should not be a bad thing necessarily. even if it just nets me tons of chunks, with btu values up like coal it could be added to the stove at nights to do a slow burn till morning.

thanks for all the offers guys hope this works, gonna start the seedlings towards the end of this next winter and hope they can put out enough growth from next spring to the next freeze to survive it.

if not, well, at least i gave it a shot

 

[Chrism]

This wouldn't happen to be the green balls With a bumpy texture squirrels like to eat? On my way home I noticed one carrying one across the road...

 

[Daniel]

If that was about baseball size, Yep. At least as I remember them. very hard also. My brother remembers that after I threw one at him that he didn't see coming. Note to self. throwing very hard round objects at unsuspecting brothers results in severe punishments. We called them horse apple trees. I now know lots of people that use the wood to make writing pens. Nice looking pens ugly fruit.

 

[LeftyRighty]

baseball size ??? no!
maybe softball, or grapefruit, or a bit larger.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

BB shipped me some today, said they were grapefruit size.

man i hope they can grow here. one mans trash truly is anothers treasure. thanks BigBonner!

 

[BigBonner]

You're welcome !

Don't blame me when you get stuck with one of the thorns and it festers up .Be carefull with the bush in the brown bag .
Daniel is right about them hurting , they are hard and heavy .Just one faling out of a tree will knock you out .

 

[BarG]

One note to rember, when you cut them down they will grow back, I believe they lose their thorns when they get big enough to maturity. at least the obig bodarks we have harvested were thorn free, wheras new growth is thorny.

 

[BigBonner]

Osage orange keep their thorns . The larger trunks will be almost thorn free , but the limbs will have thorns no matter how old they get .

You cut them of at the ground at any size or time of the year they will come back !!!
I bush hog my farm every other year they ,won't die unless you spray them with brush killer .

One note to rember, when you cut them down they will grow back, I believe they lose their thorns when they get big enough to maturity. at least the obig bodarks we have harvested were thorn free, wheras new growth is thorny.

 

[BarG]

Thats extremely interesting to me BigB as around here the thorns seem to disappear with trees maturity. I wonder what would be the cause or make the difference. The older growth 18"-24" diameter show minimal thorns. What diameter around your parts.

 

[BarG]

One of the reasons Im curios is my interest more in the harvesting of the lumber than the cultivation of the species of tree itself. I have harvested trees [with 0 thorns] but they were of a large diameter. I'm in central texas. I would think a southern clime would promote more thorn growth. {If it don't bite stick you or sting ya}

 

[BigBonner]

BarG

They don't get to be very big about the biggest is 18" and the log will only be around 10' to 12 ' long . Most sizes are about 6" to 8" and 8' log .There is no one around here who cuts them for lumber . Saw mills will not cut them , they are very hard to saw with a saw mill .If they dry out you can't get a fence staple in them without bending it . They make the best fence post , but you need to use them fresh cut , fence staples will drive in them fairley easy when they are green .

They grow so crooked that they are hardly any good for fence post .
As they get older the thorns seem to die but stay in place . If you get pricked with one you will get sore and most of the time fester up .

 

[BarG]

They don't grow real straight around here either, but I sure know what you mean about getting pricked by them thorns. I cut them down on my place and can't seem to keep from growing back. even a large dia. you might get 8or 9 ' length but still has a good crook in it. The lumber is not available commercialy and fortunately I have a good friend with a bandsawmil and we harvest trees that are not available for the average person, usualy get paid for it or given for free. It's still a lot of work though. Ive had the opportunity to work with it it quite a bit this year at about 10% moisture content and It was easier to work than say pecan for instance.