Fungus??

[Peggy]

Wow! Stay away awhile and everything changes. That'll teach us.

Oh, wise ones...hope you can answer this one.

We're DIYers building with red pine. We logged our trees and got the walls up before winter hit. Throughout the winter we've been debarking the rest of our logs.

We noticed one log that had been debarked late fall and is in the field, was covered with what looks like white chocolate. It's like a thick coating. One of the others we debarked recently has a few patches of it. Is that a fungus? Any input as to what we can do about it or are those logs "lost"?

Thanks for any help you can give us.

:confused:

[Joseph Murray]

Peggy, I'm not an expert, building my own log home with white pine. I had
close to the same problem with my logs, blooming fungus, mushrooms growing on the logs. Was told at early stage not a huge problem. I knocked off the fungus and scrubbed down the logs with 20 mule team boraxo- has boron which is a fungicide and i have not seen any new growth since I did that. Could have used penetreat but I dont want to use that until right before I stain, I was told it will leach out with heavy rainfall. Good Luck, Joe Murray:eek:

[MikeS]

Peggy

I've seen this to a lesser extent, and recently read an article about fungi. Maybe a link from a post on this fourm....I also took one pathology course during my forestry training in college, many years ago, so I have a little knowledge.

The mycelia, namely the roots, are in the wood forever. The fungi can be scraped off, and so long as there is no wood damage, you should be fine from my experience/knowledge. If the logs are dark stained, from sap stain, you may want to reject the log.

If I had a log like this in my log lot, I'd reject it.