Moonwood

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Under Moonwood or moon phase wood is meant wood from trees that take into account the forestry lunar calendar were precipitated. Subjectively, this wood is given special qualities in terms of its stability, durability, fire resistance, hardness, resistance to pests and the like. a. said. A connection between the properties of the wood and the time it was felled in the lunar calendar could not be proven with objective scientific studies.

The prices for moon wood on the market are up to 30% higher than for conventional wood.

Extraction of moon wood

The trees have to be felled in winter around Christmas with the waning moon just before the new moon . The beginning of March is also often mentioned as a good time. As with other lunar rules, there are numerous variants for the felling dates.

Attributed properties

The moonwood is said to be particularly dry, low-shrinkage, crack-free, torsion-resistant, less sensitive to rot or insect infestation and more weather-resistant. There are reports of chimneys in old farmhouses that are lined with moon wood on the inside. The wood only char on the surface without burning. Whether this is moon wood cannot be proven, but special treatment methods, e.g. B. the sludging of the surface as a spark protection. Today interested customers at forest companies , sawmills or carpenters pay up to 30% surcharge compared to the market price in order to receive moon wood. Christmas trees that were felled as moonwood allegedly start needling later than conventional goods.

Forest science

In a study between 1732 and 1736, Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau , the founder of biological wood research, refuted the thesis that wood felled in the waning moon was more durable than that felled at other phases of the moon. The forest scientist Hermann Knuchel also came to the same result in large-scale experiments in the 1920s.

Forest scientists, most recently at the TU Dresden , refuted the special qualities attributed to moon wood after investigations. In experiments, they demonstrated that physical and biological properties do not differ from those of other woods. The meaning of moon wood is a successful marketing model based on popular belief and a romantic need for an unadulterated raw material .

Studies in the 1990s (Ernst Zürcher, Swiss University of Forestry) showed that “a kind of imprint due to the specific felling date” persists. In spruce trees, for example, it was possible to demonstrate that the structure of the wood actually increases and decreases - as a diameter fluctuation of around 80 to 120 μm.

In a forestry study from 2002 , no statistically relevant deviations in the course of needle loss could be observed in 16 genetically identical spruce trees that were felled at different phases of the moon .

General factors of ancient forest technology

According to traditional opinion, the slow growth of trees on poor soil at a relatively old age is necessary for higher quality wood to develop. The winter onslaught during the sap rest was also common for reasons of transport and work allocation. The felling is done in such a way that the trees with the tops are downhill. The branches stay on the tree for at least eight weeks until spring . The tree is still trying to produce fruit and is directing the last of the juices into the branches; thus the trunk is relatively dry after limbing. The logs are cut open in the sawmill and processed after a storage period of up to two years. This means that the wood as a whole is specially selected and treated, which could explain a possible quality advantage. This type of logging according to traditional forest technology is still practiced in Austria and southern Germany.

The main problem in the investigation of forest engineering aspects turned out to be the lack of information on "old wood" and the changed criteria for the extraction, use and quality assessment of construction timber , which make experimental testing more difficult. To be mentioned here:

  • Bad sources: old timbers are rarely dated , often subjected to secondary uses and were exposed to different conditions before and after the felling. They are seldom assigned to a place of origin. In chronology this is referred to as an individual find and is wary of generalizing conclusions.
  • The climatic conditions in tree growth: This is how wood felled before 1900 grew in the Little Ice Age .
  • The genetic drift of the trees used and of the wood pests : Since the 1950s in particular, stocks have been reforested according to type , i.e. with material obtained through breeding , often genetically closely managed.
  • Material change in wood: Long-term chemical changes in the lignins , celluloses and accompanying substances, or the storage of minerals that influence the technical properties of the building material .
  • Logistical differences in timber harvesting and processing: There are uncertainties, for example, about the question of fresh construction , i.e. the time between felling, processing and installation. Little is known about the influence of rafting - which was the main transport route for construction timber until the interwar period - on leaching and structural changes in wood.

In general, it can be said that studies of tree populations in the Alpine region and other forests that are less influenced by modern forest technology , for which some of the above criteria do not apply, are of significantly higher significance.

In addition to undisputed wood qualities, which result from the age and location of the trees, many assumptions about the properties of moon wood are based on the belief in the influence of the moon on the living beings on earth.

Historical sources

Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau referred to a connection with the moon in 1764 in his book De l'Exploitation des bois , which was published in German in 1766. By pointing out that fishermen also like to bring in their catch when the moon is at a certain position and that doctors attribute various diseases to the moon (moon addiction ), he investigates the properties attributed to the wood when the tree was felled when the moon was rising or waning. He comes to the following conclusion: "If you consider this, you can expect very little from the great effects that are generally attributed to the moon."

Buildings that use moon wood

See also

literature

  • Claus-Thomas Bues: Moon wood - everything allowed? Careless handling of moon wood damages the image of the wood. (PDF)
  • Klaus-Dieter Clausnitzer: Historical wood protection in building construction. University of Hanover, 1989.
  • Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau: De l 'Exploitation des Bois. 1764. (German: Von Fällung der Wälder. 1766–1667, Transl .: Carl Christoph von Schöllenbach PDF )
  • Josef Fellner, Alfred Teischinger: Old wood rules. From myths and useful things to misinterpretations to new discoveries. Vienna 2001.
  • Hermann Knuchel: Investigations into the influence of the felling time on the properties of spruce and fir wood. In: Magazines of the Swiss Forest Association. Supplement 5, Bern 1930.
  • Ernst Zürcher: Wood research under the sign of the moon. Swiss University for the Wood Industry, SH-Holz. In: Living Earth. 6/2003. ( Web document , pdf) - to determine the properties of wood by moon phase and time of felling.

Web links

Wiktionary: moon wood  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. a b From "moon diet" to "moon wood" - everything allowed? In: Scientific journal of the TU Dresden . 1/2, 2005.
  2. Gottfried Briemle: The silvicultural lunar calendar for 2005. ( Memento of the original from June 23, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( PDF , 137 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.forstverein.it
  3. Jahn (1982) summarizes: »In the case of felling at the end of winter with the simultaneous onset of swarming of the scolytids after a cooler period, there was a clear preference for the full moon trees over the new moon trees on the first approaches. This result was confirmed in several investigations that extended over several years. «( Jahn, E. 1982: Investigations on the infestation of spruce trapping trees by bark beetles in connection with moon phases at the time of felling. In: Anzeiger für Schädlingskunde ,plantenschutz, environmental protection. Vol . 55, no. 10, pp. 145–149, doi : 10.1007 / BF01902758 .)
  4. old houses in the foothills of the Alps and on the Jura have z. T. Schornsteine ​​aus Holz, Zürcher (1999) refers to 2 houses in the open-air museum Ballenberg / Bern (see Zürcher, E. 1999: Lunar Rhythms In Forestry Traditions - Lunar-Correlated Phenomena In Tree Biology And Wood Properties. In: Earth, Moon, and Planets. Vol. 85–86, No. 0, pp. 463–478, doi : 10.1023 / A: 1017018821490. )
  5. ^ Ernst Zürcher: Wood research under the sign of the moon. 2003, p. 39.
  6. ^ Zürcher, Ernst, Maria-Giulia Cantiani, Francesco Sorbetti-Guerri, and Denis Michel. 1998. Tree Stem Diameters Fluctuate with Tide . Nature 392 (6677): 665-66. doi: 10.1038 / 33570 .
  7. Claus-Thomas Bues, Jens Triebel: Does the moon help against the annual "needle drama" under the Christmas tree? on: idw-online.de , December 10, 2002.
  8. ^ Carl Christoph Oelhafen von Schöllenbach: From felling the woods , Winterschmidt publishing house, Nuremberg 1766. p.319 PDF
  9. Clausthal Forestry Office drops moon spruce trees for Marktkirche. ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Press release Lower Saxony State Forests, January 13, 2009 (PDF; 43 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.landesforsten.de
  10. FAZ , June 20, 2016