Future of Erica Arborea?

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rodo

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 1, 2014
157
259
Central Arkansas
Been musing for a while about erica arborea. Doesn't grow everywhere and takes a long time to mature, to get the nice root balls, right? So...how much is left? Has anyone tried, I guess cultivating is the right word, the trees? Make a better briar, nicer briar, something briar? Strikes me that we talk lots and lots about the pipes, and the leaf, but has anyone tried to improve the briar?
 

BROBS

Lifer
Nov 13, 2019
11,765
40,026
IA
Yup it’s all over basically a weed...
the harvesters are becoming less and less.
So over time I would expect the value of raw briar to rise due to labor.
 
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sasquatch

Lifer
Jul 16, 2012
1,683
2,862
One does not grow trees "commercially", really. You find trees in forests, out in the forest. You don't need to "grow" them commercially (you need to manage your forest resources, replant, or protect seedlings, clear deadwood, etc). Lumber doesn't come out of greenhouses, nor does it need to, we just need to attack the existing resource with some moxy. Briar is the exact same. Grows all over the mediterranean. Take some, leave some behind for next year (next decade).

The briar cutters I talk to express exactly what Alejo mentions above - there are lots of trees, lots of roots, and few men willing to do the arduous work. If you want a briar burl that is, say, 50 years old (the plant is too small to harvest until it is 30 or so), you are talking about a plant that has been growing since 1970. So, okay. Even if they milled every single big enough heath tree in the Med for 40 years (and yeah, they did), there's still lots coming at any given time.

You pay for incredible grain, you pay for outrageous size, but buying briar, it's no problem at all in terms of the ecological side. I can get 30 or 300 blocks shipped from any number of mills. But it's tough dirty work in terrible terrain, not the sort of thing too many guys grow up dreaming about doing.
 
Jan 27, 2020
4,002
8,120
One does not grow trees "commercially", really. You find trees in forests, out in the forest. You don't need to "grow" them commercially (you need to manage your forest resources, replant, or protect seedlings, clear deadwood, etc). Lumber doesn't come out of greenhouses, nor does it need to, we just need to attack the existing resource with some moxy. Briar is the exact same. Grows all over the mediterranean. Take some, leave some behind for next year (next decade).

The briar cutters I talk to express exactly what Alejo mentions above - there are lots of trees, lots of roots, and few men willing to do the arduous work. If you want a briar burl that is, say, 50 years old (the plant is too small to harvest until it is 30 or so), you are talking about a plant that has been growing since 1970. So, okay. Even if they milled every single big enough heath tree in the Med for 40 years (and yeah, they did), there's still lots coming at any given time.

You pay for incredible grain, you pay for outrageous size, but buying briar, it's no problem at all in terms of the ecological side. I can get 30 or 300 blocks shipped from any number of mills. But it's tough dirty work in terrible terrain, not the sort of thing too many guys grow up dreaming about doing.

I would like to do that work.
 

mingc

Lifer
Jun 20, 2019
3,976
11,065
The Big Rock Candy Mountains
The people that do harvest and process briar are the same people who have been doing it for the last few decades, more or less. And they have their resources locked up.

What a delightful man! We're lucky to have him.
One does not grow trees "commercially", really. You find trees in forests, out in the forest. You don't need to "grow" them commercially (you need to manage your forest resources, replant, or protect seedlings, clear deadwood, etc).
Huh? You don't have timber plantations where you are? The trees are planted in rows, typically so close apart that the branches intertwine so it hard to walk between them. They're all over the place here.
 

Charlie718

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 25, 2021
955
8,666
35
Bronx, New York
If it’s harvested in 3rd world countries what’s good pay? Is the pay the issue or the mind frame of today’s youth world wide. With just about everyone owning a smart phone (from the bums of NYC to the goat herder in the Afghan mountains) has the youth of the world been taught the value of hard work and dedication and its rewards other then the monetary reward or do they only know and think of the instant gratification and the flashy rented jewelry in the music videos as they dream of having there cake and eating it to. And as a man who’s worked numerous shit jobs for shit pay starting at 12 years old because that was the only pay I could get I can say I’d rather work a shit job and have some money then have no job as I wait for the perfect one to come with no money in my pocket. I think today’s youth thinks they can start off at the top and when it don’t happen they feel it’s owed to them for some odd reason. But that’s just my thoughts and no one else’s lmao.
 
Jan 27, 2020
4,002
8,120
If it’s harvested in 3rd world countries what’s good pay? Is the pay the issue or the mind frame of today’s youth world wide. With just about everyone owning a smart phone (from the bums of NYC to the goat herder in the Afghan mountains) has the youth of the world been taught the value of hard work and dedication and its rewards other then the monetary reward or do they only know and think of the instant gratification and the flashy rented jewelry in the music videos as they dream of having there cake and eating it to. And as a man who’s worked numerous shit jobs for shit pay starting at 12 years old because that was the only pay I could get I can say I’d rather work a shit job and have some money then have no job as I wait for the perfect one to come with no money in my pocket. I think today’s youth thinks they can start off at the top and when it don’t happen they feel it’s owed to them for some odd reason. But that’s just my thoughts and no one else’s lmao.

Thanks for your opinion. It's very helpful.
 
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Reactions: Charlie718
Jan 27, 2020
4,002
8,120
Lmao your very welcome. I blame 6hrs sleep for the week, a few pots of coffee throughout the day, and now trying to counter those pots of coffee with a few bourbons and a bowl of something not discussed on this forum lmao ?

Please don't tell me it involves needles.

Are you on Arthur Ave?
 

sasquatch

Lifer
Jul 16, 2012
1,683
2,862
What a delightful man! We're lucky to have him.

Huh? You don't have timber plantations where you are? The trees are planted in rows, typically so close apart that the branches intertwine so it hard to walk between them. They're all over the place here.
No, I live in Canada, there's 80 zillion acres of forest. It was hammered at, clear cut etc for 100 years, we've smartened up, but no, there's no "plantations" here for harvesting - they replant after cutting and walk away for 100 years.

How do you make money waiting 50 years for a tree to grow?

(And maybe we're talking about different versions of the same thing - the trees are taken from public land, and the replanting done on the same, it's not a privately owned enterprise, as it were, where someone buys an acre of clear land, plants a thousand trees, and waits 50 years).