Mold on stickers

Is mold on my stickers an issue? I cut some Maple then stacked and stickerd them last week. Today I restacked because I needed to move it, and saw the the stickers had mold on them. Is that an issue?

yes, stickers need to be dry.

Depends, are they scratch and sniff? Mold would add to the sniff.

Spring is a horrible time to cut maple, especially good colored hard maple. The sugar content, warmth, and lots of humidity, is just perfect to grow mold. I'd say a very good likelihood you have sticker stain right now.

The tree was cut last fall. I have now just got around to cutting the log.

I have been known to find kiln dried stock for stickers for that very reason. I will also sometimes lay boards out in the sun for an hour or so to let the surface moisture evaporate off.....but no longer. Make sure you brush all the saw dust off the surface right away too.

B

Is there a certain material that works best for stickers? I was using 1/2 plywood scraps, 1" wide.

I have also lowered the humidity in my shop by running my air conditioner more. Is there something I should now use on the moldy areas on the lumber? Would anything help the problem that has already started.

A lot of commercial kilns use dried White Oak for stickers.
I have had light green colored mold visible in the drying stack of maple at times. It planes right off to no ill effect or color.
If you get a black colored mold, you will probably have staining issues.

As long as it drys, mold shouldn't be an issue. A little surface mold is fairly common in all the rough lumber I've ever worked with. If conditions aren't wet, the mold won't continue growing any deeper than the outermost surface.

I would change them all to kiln dried material other sise you could get sticker stain in your maple which may not go away when you surface the boards.

I know it would be a pain but when my father in law just had wet pine he had to use for stickers he wrapped them in plastic wrap, worked very well just a pain