Treated wood chips kill a tree?

I saw alot of bags of wood chips with a sign that read "free wood chips" outside of a business off of I-35 in Lake Dallas near Denton. I loaded up the bed of the truck and took them to their new home. As I was opening the bags, I noticed a smell. I did not think much about it at first, but as I went about distrubuting them around the trees, I got to thinking that they were probably treated. I decided to just use them around my ornamental trees and not my fruit or nut trees in case it was treated and leeched into the soil and perhaps could be taken into the fruit somehow. When the wind blows from the pasture, it puts off a strong smell. Today while I was mowing, a landscaper stopped to see if I wanted to mow small acreage for him with my tractor. We got to talking about the wood chips and he said that they could kill my trees and that landfills will not even let you dump treated wood. Do I need to bag up all of those wood chips? They should have had a sign that said treated wood chips instead of just free wood chips. I do not want my trees to die. Thanks, Mike

By treated do you mean pressure treated? I've never seen it in chipped form but that's the only treated wood I can think of. If it's pressure treated wood, it shouldn't kill your trees (people build raised beds out of PT wood all the time and the plants do just fine), but some people are concerned about the chemicals leaching into the soil and getting into veggies and things, so you'll probably hear a lot of people say you shouldn't use it on a veggie garden.

I'd be VERY cautious - some preservative treatments are highly toxic. But just because some wood smells, doesn't necessarily mean it was treated; some trees have wood that smells naturally, and smells can also be a result of partial composting.

Try to find out from the person who was giving them away, what the source of the wood was. What sort of business was it, for starters?

Resin

You need to figure out what the chips were exactly made out of. I would certianly not use them around fruit trees or veggies. I guess a business that makes barns or something like that may chip pressure treated wood. The other problem is the chips would never break down or not for a long time.

I have read that they normally use arsenic in treated wood. We had about 3" of rain the night I posted this so I guess whatever damage is going to happen and whatever is going to be leeched into the soil has already happened. The company that had the chips out was a fence company. I have reservations about talking to them as frustrated as I am right now about this. If it had not rained so much, I might have bagged them backup and taken them back with a sign "Free Toxic Wood Chips". If these trees live, I guess that I want have to worry too much about bugs around them. Thanks again,
Mike

Check with the company. With fencing wood, it is quite likely they are trimmings from before the fence posts are treated - they are not likely to trim after treatment, as even with pressure treatment, the chemicals may not penetrate right to the centre of the wood, and trimming after treatment may expose wood that the treatment didn't reach. It also wastes expensive preservatives.

It would have been a very different matter if the chips were from e.g. a buildings materials recycling company.

Resin

I believe they took the arsenic out a few years ago and put more copper in it. The EPA was worried that wood play ground equipment would end up putting arsenic dust in the air and in the soil. I wouldn't worry about the trees. What is toxic to humans doesn't have to be toxic to a plant.

CoreHHI is right, the arsenic was phased out years ago and now they use other less toxic (although I'm sure still not healthy!) materials. But I guess depending on how old the wood is that you got there might be some in there. I wouldn't use it around things you're planning to eat, and if you have kids who might play in the wood chips then I'd worry, but I really don't think it'll hurt your plants.

Aaaahhhhh!! Get it away!!! untreated - by this I mean without red fire ant or any other treated chemical for bugs or dried through the kiln to take away any mold or bugs - you never know what you are getting. more than likely you will get a nasty mold that grows in it, but it will go away.

One of the biggest things with mulch especially freshly shaved mulch is to make sure you have a three inch doughnut around the trunk base of the tree. As long as you keep it away from the base, the creepy crawlies wont set up in the moisture of the mulch. Also, if you are anywhere along the west coast, make sure from your Dept of Ag to see if it has to be fire ant treated. Mainly that concern is just with dirt, but if you have some guy in a dumptruck just wanting to make a buck, don't do it. You paid too much for your plants to have them rot.

I hope this helps...we use a large mulch vendor that hauls it in by the semi - truck load, but also, the stuff at Lowes or anyother chain store is usually on the up and up.

Happy Planting