OneEyeAscension said:
I'm using vinegar/sodium carbonate/vegetable oil.
You don't know how much I envy you and your 1.8kg acuminata batch.
I could drive out to W.A. but it will take at least 7 hours by car. Think I'd be better off driving 3 hours to a location I believe is flooded with burkitti.
I've never removed fresh bark from a tree before, I always take the old stuff (I don't want to kill a tree), but it seems like my best bet. Can you give me some tips on how you harvest the bark? Do you take bark from the base or branches etc? What precautions do you take to minimize damage to the tree? Do you use a hunting knife or remove the bark by hand?
Where SWIM lives, a 7 hour drive is considered de rigueur if going "to town".
But yes it would be a disappointment to travel all that way and mis-identify.
Believe me, there really are gazillions of these trees. And they are prolific breeders.
SWIM uses very sharp, large size, limb secateurs. On the trunk use the blades on the bark to cut around the trunk about a centimetre deep. Then hold the blades open with point down and use them to flip out the bark at the cut line as one might use a paint stripper going down a wall. It sounds violent but it isn't. The bark should lift off fairly easily, revealing a yellow/light green inner core. Then just pull downwards and it will come off in long strips. If you pull carefully it will strip all the way to the earth. SWIM has used this method and the trees are still alive, so don't be too worried. One medium sized tree will easily yield 1.5kgs of bark matter, which you should cut into small pieces, and powder BEFORE it dries or it will be too hard to work with (SWIM has taken a few days to cut strips into smaller pieces and process, so one needn't do it all in one day). It will remain moist for up to a week.
If you still feel in any way that this is not a good method, and causes harm to the tree, many animals ring-bark trees. Sheep, goats, elephant, horses, even lions. In Africa acacias are ring-barked to make rope and kiondo. Humans harvest wood for construction all over the world on a scale it would be very hard to comprehend. I wouldn't be that concerned about this.
SWIM uses bark from
trunks by preference, as it's easier to get big yields, long strips, and it is closer to the ground. Of course, if you are driving a number of hours you'll want to harvest as much as you can, so the big lower branches also yield bark in the same stripping method.
Lamby
