stripping the bark: is it safe for the tree?

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Nice65

Brilliant!
Apr 16, 2009
6,421
2,847
W.Sussex
It's both commoner, and with thicker bark, in the North though, Santaman.
It's a 'pioneer species'. I have howked hundreds of them out of threatened bogs and upland mosses, and thousands more out of every blooming planter and space between slabs and stepstones in the garden.
Lovely trees, useful trees, but a damned weed at times.

M

Very true, Birch are one of the first colonisers on cleared land where I live. They provide a bright and airy environment for other plant and tree species. They are also a very short lived tree, used for firewood and pulp.

I tend to regard them as I would a field of oats, a crop, like most trees in managed forest. Not to say I just slice bark off them, but more that if needs must, taking some bark or sap isn't going to bother me. That said, there's so much laying on the ground I never really do.
 

Parbajtor

Maker
Feb 5, 2014
99
8
Surbiton
www.tanczos.co.uk
The outermost bark is normally very poor quality to work with. The inner layers that I see on that tree trunk is much better quality but the risk of damaging the bark cambium is much higher. Vertical knife cuts do much less damage than horizontal cuts. It's also possible that your birch species is not our birch species (Betula papyrifera) which lends itself to serious harvesting.

Other than tapping for sap to make syrup, I see bark stripping as a cosmetic insult to both the tree and to anyone passing by. Sometimes I get lucky and can harvest bark from birch cut as firewood. As a rule, I won't wander through a forest, hacking at the birch trees for any reason.

Did some skiing around Peachlands on the border of the Okanagan. The cosmetic insults I saw around there almost reduced me to tears alternating with anger. Sometimes these "survival" programs have a lot to answer for, particularly the Bear Grylls ones which barely pay lip service to the damage caused. Survival is one thing, but others go out and emulate without the skills, experience or knowledge to do it without vandalism. As you say, mostly there's plenty of felled/dead wood to exploit without killing/defacing living trees.
 

Tantalus

Native
May 10, 2004
1,014
104
60
Galashiels
Altered your pic a little.



The red circles are where the bark has been taken right down to the cambium and these patches will leave a scar as well as opening up the living tissue to the risk of infection till they heal.

The rest of the stripping (except for the knife cuts obviously) should have done no harm at all to the tree.

Just above the green lines you can see there are layers within the bark, as you are peeling you can tell if you are going too deep and into the cambium by checking on these layers as you go.

Tant
 
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Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,663
McBride, BC
I suggest that the exposed areas circled in red are patches of secondary phloem.
The cambium should be several mm beneath that and typically a layer just one or two cells thick.

However Tantalus is correct in that the waterproof surface of the tree has been compromised to allow opportunity for infection.
Thus, those exposures rarely heal.

Neither will the color change in the exposed layers of bark. They don't turn gray with time.
Clearly some twit with little regard for the tree and even less understanding of bark crafting needed a play-thing.

In my past 50 years of direct interest in dendrology, I have met just a single person, Angie Levesque,
working with birch bark. No cups, no tools, no toys, just the rare art form of birch bark biting. The patterns are magnificent.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,293
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
I wonder if the trees have different resistance to damaged bark in different climates?
In Sweden we traditionally take off the full thickness of the outer layer, exposing the phloem , but they still heal well.
 
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Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,663
McBride, BC
Janne, I agree but it's a puzzle beyond the idiots that insist on cutting bark for no useful purposes.
I can only imagine the differences are species related. What you have in Europe is quite unlike the paper birch here.

Let's suppose that you want birch for building. Birch is a multipurpose tree which can be used for many purposes.
You are not going to mess around and whack a mature 12" - 16" birch for the bark alone. Is that perfectly clear?
Fresh, wet birch wood is very nice to shape and carve.
The wood will go into utensils and pack frames/canoe parts/snowshoe frames.
In the old days, most bark would have gone in to boats with the smaller pieves used in cups and other culinary pieces.

Now. If you have the hots and gogglies to try this in western Canada, I can put you up.
Think I can get a damn big birch cut for your explorations. All the rest of this it your efforts.
 

General Strike

Forager
May 22, 2013
132
0
United Kingdom
I wonder if the trees have different resistance to damaged bark in different climates?
In Sweden we traditionally take off the full thickness of the outer layer, exposing the phloem , but they still heal well.

I think it is established within this thread that undoubtedly that is the case; the parts of the bark that can be stripped are thicker in colder climes. In temperate climates it is fairly easy to damage a birch when peeling off bark - and since the bark layer is thinner, I think the variety of purposes it can be put to would also be fewer.

In a temperate climate I would limit use to collecting tinder from the peely bits of bark that can be gathered easily by hand - with the exception of collecting bark from dead trees. It's possible that in Italy the bark thickness is further reduced; no doubt there is a reason that crafting with birch bark is a well-established tradition in North America and Scandinavia rather than the Mediterranean.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,663
McBride, BC
While there may well be some differences in climatic response, don't forget that the birch native to Europe are not Betula papyrifera, the Paper Birch.
It follows that there is no reason to suppose that the bark will have the same thickness or working characteristics.
There are several other species in North America as well.

Unlike any other acceptable kinds of fire-starting tinder, birch bark will burn easily when wet or dry.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,293
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
When the Same people in Sweden are herding above the tree line, they make very small fires using birch bark and reindeer horn.
Small enough to put your legs around and boil a couple of cups of coffee.

Fantastic stuff, the birch.
Young leaves can be eaten, leaves ( old and young, made into a healthy tea, you can in extreme situation eat the innermost thin bark, the sap is nice to drink, you can also boil it down to syrup. Wood burns well when wet. wood tumors make excellent containers kasor to drink from.
Bark to be used as leather. hats, shoes, knife scabbards, handles, containers and much, much more! Even canoes!
And of course you can use the twigs in the sauna!
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
When the Same people in Sweden are herding above the tree line, they make very small fires using birch bark and reindeer horn.
Small enough to put your legs around and boil a couple of cups of coffee.

Fantastic stuff, the birch.
Young leaves can be eaten, leaves ( old and young, made into a healthy tea, you can in extreme situation eat the innermost thin bark, the sap is nice to drink, you can also boil it down to syrup. Wood burns well when wet. wood tumors make excellent containers kasor to drink from.
Bark to be used as leather. hats, shoes, knife scabbards, handles, containers and much, much more! Even canoes!
And of course you can use the twigs in the sauna!


You forgot about birch lumber. It's a very beautiful wood.
 

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