Kalewood - the next big thing in natural products?

You can now include "wood" as another benefit of kale

Happy Friday, everyone. Stay healthy; eat your kale. ~JRC

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Yes, it’s kalewood.

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Approx. 900 words; four minutes read time

Kale. That green leafy "superfood" everyone raves about (or loathes, depending on who you talk with). Kale is jam-packed with more vitamins and minerals than any other comparable green. It's the do-all veggie. From smoothies to chips, pasta to pizza, kale makes everything better (well, at least better for you). Is there anything kale can't do?

Believe it or not, it even makes excellent wood. There is a catch, though. And it's a real stinker.

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Kale is a cultivated variety of Brassica oleracea, a plant native to Western Europe. Broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are also derived from this species. 

Kale - usually thought of as a leafy, herbaceous plant, starts getting woody if left to grow. I had a specimen for four seasons, and over the years, it developed an honest-to-goodness trunk. The plant began to decline last summer and finally died not long ago. Curious, I decided to saw it up and have a look.

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The kale had died more or less upright and dried and cured in place. So I sawed off a good-sized piece and took it to my shop.

There, I first squared the ends and one side using the bandsaw. Next, I set a guide fence to slice off 1/8-inch-thick boards. These I refined into planks, optimizing length and width as best I could.

In all, I created over 40 square inches of tiny wood boards from the original 12-inch-long piece. And there's quite a bit more trunk left to mill, so I expect to get twice-again as much total. Not a lot, but for something not known for its lumber, I'd say it's a good haul.

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Kalewood is surprisingly strong. It's much harder than balsa but not as tough as poplar. It doesn't tend to bend, and the best pieces don't easily break.

Fun side note - there's a standard measure of wood strength known as the Janka Hardness Test. It's based on how much energy it takes to drive an 11.28 mm (0.444 inch) steel ball into the wood. Why that size? I have no idea. Anyway, for balsa (very soft), it takes about 70 pound-feet of force. And for ebony (very hard), about 3,220 pound-feet. I'd venture to say kalewood is somewhere in the 300-400 pound-feet range. I couldn't test it as I didn't have an 11.28 mm sized steel ball handy. Sorry. 

A buddy suggested I see how water resistant kalewood is, so I soaked a small plank overnight. It took about twelve hours before it sank, and even then, it did not swell, warp or crack. It lacks the oils and phenolics that make woods like cedar so weather resistant, so I expect it would soon rot if left wet. But all-in-all, kalewood seems durable and even somewhat water-resistant.

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The main drawback that I've discovered with kalewood - it smells. I characterize it as a cross between broccoli-gone-bad and mushrooms. It's not powerful or overwhelming, but the smell is there. Right now, as I write, I'm sitting next to the milled wood, and occasionally, I get a small whiff of it. It's like being on an airplane and catching a hint of that dreaded smell - did someone? Oh no, how could they?! 

Okay, the smell's not that bad. But you get the idea.

The faint odor of kalewood might be an artifact of how my piece dried. Fungi could have crept in before it succumbed, causing that mushroom smell. But the broccoli odor is probably the way it is no matter what. If kiln-dried, the wood might smell better, and I bet with age it would dissipate regardless. And there’s the masking effect of a strong petroleum-based finish, if all else fails.

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As for potential use, kalewood looks a lot like miniature pine planks. I can imagine it being used for scale models and dioramas, for example. I could also see making curio boxes and other small woodcrafts in kalewood. It's not durable enough for cutting boards. But it might work for knife handles or wooden kitchen utensils like spoons and spatulas. With a little 21st-Century engineering, kalewood could even serve as flooring, much like cork. 

Best of all - growing it couldn't be easier. Commercially, kale is an annual crop; it's planted and harvested for its leaves within a season. But left to grow, plants develop woody stems. And if a demand existed for kalewood, farmers could raise it for that sole purpose, leaving it to grow for a year or more. Better still, there might be a way to harvest edible leaves while the trunks mature. 

Yes, we could have our kale[wood] and eat it too.

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There you have it, folks - kalewood. It's real. I never expected to be milling lumber from a kale plant. And I never thought I'd write an article about the potential of kale - in anything, let alone as a wood source. Perhaps it’s the next big thing in natural products.

Kalewood - a solid idea or a big stink about nothing? Only time will tell.

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Until next time.

JRC