What is Balsa?

I can't say that I have ever seen a balsa tree. We use the wood alot, where does it come from?

It's a South American tree. Thor Heyerdal built his Kontiki from balsa. He has some interesting passages on its growth and harvest.

Here ya go.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochroma_pyramidale

Thank-you, I grew up with encyclopedia's and sometimes forget that all that information is contained in a little humming box.
I had no idea balsa had so many uses beyond model making.

A very fast growing short, life span tree. which is why it's so light weight. Huge fibre cells.
As others have mentioned a South American tree grown as a crop.
Here's a couple pictures that may also helps

Lately the price of balsa is getting higher and higher.

One reason cited is windmills. Balsa is used as the core material in windmill blades. Those blades are 90 feet long. That's a lot of balsa.

Balsa is also used as an insulation in cargo ships. The Chinese are buying as much balsa as they can at a premium price and taking priority in balsa shipments driving the price up.

IIRC, North American Aviation briefly considered the use of balsa as tank insulation for the S-II, the Saturn V's second stage.

Greg

Balsa is also used as a porous filler material in acetylene storage tanks.

Acetylene becomes a shock sensitive explosive when compressed above ~15 PSI. But when dissolved in acetone, then absorbed into a porous material, it can be compressed much higher and stored in cylinders safely.

How far north will balsa trees grow?? I know it's tropical, but... more tropical than not around Houston... LOL

Seriously though, there probably hasn't been much in the way of "improvement" or breeding of balsa trees, which is necessary to grow them in different climates, by breeding in cold hardiness. We probably have just enough winter around here to kill every last one of them if we tried to grow them.

Still, a buddy of mine from the police academy was telling me about how he's planting banana trees to grow his own fruit (along with a bunch of other stuff). I commented how he probably wouldn't get any fruit and the trees would probably die in a few years from a bad freeze. He told me they were dwarf bananas (grow about 3-4 inches long) and were bred for cold hardiness. SO, it SHOULD be possible....

I was awfully surprised when I picked up a pack of fresh blueberries in a local store and found that they were grown locally, just north of Houston... if cold area plants like blueberries can grow in our heat, then it should be possible for properly bred tropical trees to grow in our *relative* coolness (compared to the tropics).

I'd love to put in a blueberry and balsa orchard... Course with the price those local blueberries were bringing, buying overpriced balsa would be no problem... :y:

Later! OL JR

Luke:
As I understand it the Balsa tree isn't really "Planted" it's more or less a Scrub Weed growning in wild widely spread patches. Doesn't seem to take to being cultivated sort of like the Redbud tree. I had a buddy who's father was a Missionary in Costa Rica for several decades. he and his parish tried several times to plant and/or graft Balsa trees into the compound around their area without much success.

Generally the harvesting is done by roving lumber company crews in road gang type operations traveling on foot and/or mule into the remote balsa tree areas to cut and float the logs down whatever riveror stream is handy. They leave enough mature trees so that within 3 to 5 years the balsa has recovered with new trees in harvestable 6-12" diameter size.

Here's a couple of useful links for you:

https://www.mat.uc.pt/~pedro/ncientificos/artigos/techbal.html

https://www.specializedbalsa.com/balsa_grain_classification.php

Balsa is also used as a core material in fibre-glass sail boats. I don't know about power boats, but maybe there too.

Micromeister said:

Luke:
As I understand it the Balsa tree isn't really "Planted" it's more or less a Scrub Weed growning in wild widely spread patches. Doesn't seem to take to being cultivated sort of like the Redbud tree. I had a buddy who's father was a Missionary in Costa Rica for several decades. he and his parish tried several times to plant and/or graft Balsa trees into the compound around their area without much success.

Generally the harvesting is done by roving lumber company crews in road gang type operations traveling on foot and/or mule into the remote balsa tree areas to cut and float the logs down whatever riveror stream is handy. They leave enough mature trees so that within 3 to 5 years the balsa has recovered with new trees in harvestable 6-12" diameter size.

Click to expand...

Interesting... thank you Micro... I appreciate it.

Ya know, EVERYTHING started off as "wild weeds" that didn't like to be cultivated... corn is the perfect example... that stuff folks see growing over entire counties in the Midwest is a FAR FAR cry from it's "native" forebears... even the "Indian corn" which is about 3 feet tall or so bears little resemblence to both it's modern yellow dent field corn descendents and it's almost wheat-like grass ancestors... yet still the original genome is a wealth of untapped traits, especially in the areas of pest and disease resistance...

I remember at an ag conference one time, hearing a story from a cotton researcher who went to Africa looking for a particular wild forebearer of modern upland cotton grown all over Texas and the SE US. He asked the locals and was told where to go out on the savannah to find it. He went out and scouted around, walking to and fro in the hot sun scouring the blistering savannah for this apparently non-existant plant. He finally took shade under a small tree for awhile and returned to the village. Upon inquring further and discussing his futile search with the locals, he found out that the plant he was looking for was not some 1-3 foot high small broadleaf plant amongst the various grasses covering the savannah, but in fact was the lone scraggly tree he sought shelter from the hot sun under... returning to the scrubby tree, he soon recognized the similarities-- leaf shape, bark texture, and sure enough, small lint-filled fruit, similar to cotton bolls (pronounced "BOWLS"). He obtained his samples after all... modern upland field cotton is descended from a perennial deciduous small tree that grows in dry climates, usually along the rough waterline between the wet and dry seasons... (IE not in the wettest or driest of the local areas, but at the 'mean water line' where the 'shore' is in the wet season).

I'd imagine that little has been done to 'domesticate' the balsa tree, or to improve its hardiness or cultivars... if such research were conducted and a breeding program performed, I'm sure it would yield much improved varieties much better adapted to various areas... BUT it would require many years of research and effort...

For now, I presume that there is no economic incentive for such an investment... harvesting of wild production is probably sufficient, though if the price continues to increase, it will create the economic incentive for more research... Just as it did with cotton and corn (and every other crop we grow... )

later! OL JR

Balsa is also used heavily as the cores in 463L pallets (and other pallets) with aluminum skins and aluminum extrusion edge members. AAR Cadillac in MI (now known as AAR Mobility Systems) uses a LOT of balsa. I've been there several times. I did not visit the Busy Bee.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/463L_master_pallet

An interesting bit of trivia (that I learned from one of the rocketry forums) is that balsa is a hardwood. "Hardwood" and "softwood" trees are differentiated by the type of seed they produce, not the density of the wood derived from them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwood
https://forestry.about.com/cs/treeid/f/Tree_ID_wood.htm

-- Roger