ALCS Persuades Pennsylvania Conservation Agencies to Approve White Oak for Deer Exclosure Fence Posts
July 19, 2021
In a memo sent to two key Pennsylvania conservation agencies, ALCS recently persuaded PA DCNR and NRCS to include white oak (quercus alba) as an approved fence post material for federally funded and state-funded high-fence projects, like deer exclosures that protect regenerating forest habitat. While planning a federal-and-state-funded deer exclosure project to protect Golden Wing Warbler habitat, ALCS president Josh First noticed the official approved wood types for the fencing posts seemed "odd."
"The old official list includes wood species like osage orange and black locust, and some other oddballs. Surprisingly, they are listed as viable options for ten-to-twelve-foot-long posts, and I just kept shaking my head, trying to make sense of it," says First.
"Osage orange mostly grows in curly cues and short shrubby forms that are difficult to saw, and which only lend themselves to short fence posts at best. Few loggers are going to spend the time to fell, skid, and buck a scrawny osage orange tree log, unless the timber buyer has designated that tree for harvest. Plus osage orange is uncommon in Pennsylvania; it is not a common or large component of timber sales here. So that species wasn't a practical source of tall fence posts."
"And locust is primarily a pioneer-on-disturbed site and edge habitat tree. In Pennsylvania, a great deal of our edge habitat is also pretty flat, and therefore it is being paved over or otherwise converted to something other than the brushy conditions locust grows in. This means black locust is a lot less abundant than it used to be. Most locust is in demand for firewood today, and mills don't know what to do with locust they might saw up. Additionally, locust grows with such wild grain patterns that getting a tall, dimensionally consistent post also with consistent straight grain that won't explode into shards when pounded into the ground is a tall order," said First.
First noted that many of the species on the approved list seemed to be from the 1950s or 1960s, and that the list was probably put together in Washington, DC, without regard for regional species distribution, or current sawmill practices.
"Fifty, sixty, seventy years ago, farmers were the primary purchasers of fence posts, and sawmills probably routinely cut all kinds of posts because they knew they would have ready buyers. Today, everything is so standardized that posts made of oddball species probably won't sell well, because the primary purchaser of fence posts are suburban home owners and conservation professionals. So sawmills are not going to risk cutting a bunch of material only to have it sit around the lumber yard."
"Western cedars are commonly available today for fence posts, but they are a lot more expensive than they were fifty years ago, and really tall cedar fence posts for deer fencing are a specialty item you can't just go out and find locally," says First. He notes that cedar is not a highly shock resistant wood, a trait which can be needed in fencing forested areas where heavy tree limbs fall.
"Yes, western firs are also great woods and they make fine fence posts, without a doubt," says First. "But why are Pennsylvanians having to pay for 3,000 miles of cross-country freight on expensive, chemical-laden posts with relatively weak shearing strength, when we have our own native, abundant, 100% natural, untreated, very strong, cheap, naturally rot-resistant white oak right here in our laps? White oak grows tall and strong here in abundance, and it is naturally suited for the Pennsylvania landscape and for deer fencing."
First notes that white oak posts must be immediately banded together into bundles and then stored out of direct sunlight for several months, or else the posts will warp badly.
"White oak is an extremely tough wood, with all kinds of powerful forces locked up inside of it. The sailing battleships were made of white oak, as are whiskey and wine barrels. If white oak is allowed to dry properly, it will keep that shape for decades in the ground, and for hundreds of years above ground," says First.
"Sawmills across Pennsylvania acquire substantial amounts of small-diameter pallet-grade white oak logs, usually from the very top of the tree, what is known as the tree's 'run-out'. While pallet makers may be paying forty to fifty cents a board foot, fence posts often pay significantly more than that, per board foot. So this policy has the potential to add a nice increase of value to sawmills who cut even a small amount of white oak," says First.
The memo about white oak posts that First wrote to the Natural Resource Conservation Service and the PA Department of Conservation & Natural Resources is below.
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Memo
To: Dan Wagner, USDA/NRCS Lycoming County, PA
cc: Jason Smith, PA DCNR
From: Josh First, Landowner, Lycoming County
Date: April 8, 2021
Re: Using native white oak posts for deer fencing projects
Thank you for updating me on the status of USDA/NRCS/PA DCNR not using native white oak posts for installing deer fencing. As we discussed yesterday, I again looked into this subject and come away more certain than before that our resource agencies are missing this important opportunity. It is disappointing, because it seems to be so poorly considered. Every bit of research I have found on this subject, both peer-reviewed science and practical hands-on field use guides, state unequivocally that American white oak is a very rot-resistant species suitable for long-term in-ground use. Especially its heartwood, like 6x6 pallet cants.
White oak is the only wood used for liquid cooperage (wooden barrels), and it was used to make sea-faring warships for hundreds of years, because it is water-proof. It is recommended as an in-ground post material on par with the cedars and treated softwoods that are usually commercially available, not so right now due to a national shortage, and it is only slightly less rot resistant than locust. It is far more shock resistant and durable than any commercially available posts, which are almost all chemically treated western softwoods. Shock resistance is important for fencing, because heavy tree limbs fall in the woods. White oak is a native species that is easily obtained for low cost, its use involves no polluting chemicals, and it lasts a very long time. My own experience with white oak posts is that they easily last twenty years in wet dirt, and the less outside wood on the post (the more heartwood), the longer it lasts. Contrast that with treated posts rotting or fracturing after ten to fifteen years. Locust is not nearly as available as it once was, primarily because the edge areas in which it once grew abundantly are now under pavement.
In sum, it makes little sense that the existing official guidance for deer fencing posts includes black locust, black walnut, and western cedars/firs, and yet excludes easily accessible, cheap, native, shock-resistant, rot-resistant white oak. Please share this memo, and try to have this deficient policy changed. The benefits of using white oak posts in Pennsylvania deer fencing projects are high, and include using renewable native material that is often found on-site; transport costs are very low vs Western species; supporting PA sawmills and PA landowners; no chemicals; much more shock-resistant than competing posts, and so a lower replacement rate in big woods environments. Please see the table below I created, which summarizes my research on this. We should be using white oak posts on deer fencing projects. Thank you.
Wood Species |
Rot Resist |
Shock Resist |
Cost |
Availability |
PA Native |
Chemicals |
White oak |
High to Med |
High |
Low |
High |
Yes |
No |
Western cedar |
High to Med |
Low |
Med-high |
Med to Low |
No |
Yes |
Locust |
High |
High |
Med |
Med to Low |
Yes |
No |
Western fir |
High |
Med |
Med-high |
Med to Low |
No |
Yes |
Cherry |
High to Med |
Low |
High |
High |
Yes |
No |
