Does sourwood spalt?

[Mike Peace]

I have a big block of green sourwood 16" in diameter and 20" long sitting on one end in the shade. Wondering if I am likely to get any spalting.

[Ralph Lindberg]

I'd never heard of "sourwood", so I looked it up.... Sorrel.

Yup, but just how, and what it would look like, not a clue. All true wood will spalt, but some of types, well.... nothing interesting.

[Robert Henrickson]

I also hadn't heard of sourwood. In any event, the results can vary from log to log from the same tree, whatever the species. Some years ago my parents cut a sweetgum and I stacked a number of logs in the corner of my garage. Several years later I went through the pile. Some had had not spalted at all, others partially, others completely. The nature of the spalting varied widely from one log to another, even though they had been stacked together.

[Ralph Lindberg]

Mike, I asked Sara Robinson (PhD Forest products and an expert on Spalting) about this last night. Her reply "all wood spalts, some better then others"

"soft woods" (conifers) spalt poorly, their prime natural fungus causes brown-rot, where the wood just falls apart.
"hard woods" spalt better. Woods with more sapwood then heartwood spalt better then the other way around. Lighter colored woods show spalting better then darker woods (ie walnut, etc)

There is a wealth of information on her web-site http://www.northernspalting.com/