Thread: Black Locust for long bows

I planted 2 hectares of black Locust or Robinia for posts over 20 years ago. I have since found out it makes good longbows. If anyone wants some wood it's free. I can even deliver lower Nth Island and perhaps Auckland. Lots of videos on youtube about Robinia or Black Locust. Im in Hawkes bay. I have some posts that are 7 ft long I cat two years ago, they would be ready to use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsRpHVG68tE

Would gratefully take you up on a stave or two. Have PM'd you.
Thanks

Greetings @annzer,
Glad to see someone else growing Robinia Psuedoacacia AKA Black Locust. Shipmast Locust or Thorny Acascia. My father collected some seedings for me almost 30 years ago and I palnted them here. They are nowhere as good as yours though. I have read of the timber being used for rifle stocks as well as bows.
Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings @annzer,
Glad to see someone else growing Robinia Psuedoacacia AKA Black Locust. Shipmast Locust or Thorny Acascia. My father collected some seedings for me almost 30 years ago and I palnted them here. They are nowhere as good as yours though. I have read of the timber being used for rifle stocks as well as bows.
Regards Grandpamac.

There has been a lot of trial work done on Robinia in NZ, and the results have indicated that it produces extremely well here, but only on fertile, sheltered sites that would also grow great horticultural crops. Most people, given the choice between making an income from kiwifruit or from Robinia, would probably bypass Robinia. @annzer has his in a great spot. I have tried to grow them here on the coastal hills only 25kms or so from annzer in a straight line, but my trees get blasted by wind, damaged by possums and deer, and generally are slow and fussy and totally outclassed by the durable eucs which have similar timber properties. I wish the breeding program that went into poplars and willows had covered Robinia as well, and developed a wind-tolerant, thornless clone. They are trees with some great attributes; N-fixing, amazing bee fodder, attractive and durable.

Originally Posted by Ben Waimata

There has been a lot of trial work done on Robinia in NZ, and the results have indicated that it produces extremely well here, but only on fertile, sheltered sites that would also grow great horticultural crops. Most people, given the choice between making an income from kiwifruit or from Robinia, would probably bypass Robinia. @annzer has his in a great spot. I have tried to grow them here on the coastal hills only 25kms or so from annzer in a straight line, but my trees get blasted by wind, damaged by possums and deer, and generally are slow and fussy and totally outclassed by the durable eucs which have similar timber properties. I wish the breeding program that went into poplars and willows had covered Robinia as well, and developed a wind-tolerant, thornless clone. They are trees with some great attributes; N-fixing, amazing bee fodder, attractive and durable.

The bark is poisonous to cattle

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

The bark is poisonous to cattle

Are you sure? I've had cattle grazing around Robinia and on foliage etc for many years and never had a problem.

Cattle never eat the bark, I open the trees up to my bulls often and never had a problem, they do love the leaves. I was in India and in the foothills the local population got talked into growing pines for Turpentine in the days of British rule. The problem was the trees were only good for turpentine. The local I was with showed me trees that had at least three uses which he thought was a minimum. Feed for stock, timber for houses/ fences etc and erosion/ shade protection which was partly aesthetic value, and then beneficial to bees and birds.

I think part of our journey in life should be to create beautiful spaces, trees can do that while not affecting grazing value. Robina are great firewood, they are like ramming steel into the ground, bees love them and they are legumes now I need to find more uses for the wood.

I have just been with a friend to pick up 100k pines for carbon credit forestry. That one nursery is growing 15 million pines for this year. Thats a nightmare down the road, both through loss of family farms, loss of millions of head of livestock and trees that will be worthless down the road. We are being run by idiots.

Originally Posted by Ben Waimata

Are you sure? I've had cattle grazing around Robinia and on foliage etc for many years and never had a problem.

Here is a link:https://www.bellarmine.edu/faculty/d...lacklocust.asp
The OP states Black Locust and looking at the form of the tree they look like Black Locust. A lot of tree legumes are poisonous in part or whole, just think of our own native Kowhai

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Here is a link:https://www.bellarmine.edu/faculty/d...lacklocust.asp
The OP states Black Locust and looking at the form of the tree they look like Black Locust. A lot of tree legumes are poisonous in part or whole, just think of our own native Kowhai

A lot of tree legumes are also hallucinogenic. I imported some seeds of Anadenanthera colubrina a few years back to trial it as a timber tree. The seeds were inspected by MPI on arrival in the country, and released to me. Which I was very pleased about as a bit later I discovered that the seeds can be used as a LSD substitute, and are a class A drug in NZ! It's totally nuts, you can legally import the seeds with the intention of sowing them, but if you import them for any other reason you can end up going to jail. Sadly the trees did not survive.