Rot-Resistant Lumber and The Market for Black Locust — with Zach Rike

Black locust is a fast growing hardwood, native to the Allegheny Plateau and surrounding bioregions in the eastern half of the United States. The wood is highly durable, and rot resistant, and lasts 2-3x as pressure treated wood in contact with the soil. Robi Decking is a company that mills, processes, markets, and distributes black locust decking to all 50 US states and throughout Canada. Today, Robi’s founder Zach Rike joined us to dive into the uses of black locust, the downsides of tropical hardwoods, why pressure treated pine means planned obsolescence, the nuances of building with black locust, how much creativity you want in architecture, and more.A huge thanks to Zach Rike for joining us on Plant The Trees. Zach closed a lot of loops with this podcast, and it’s great to hear from one of the foremost users of black locust in the United States. Like he said, check them out at RobiDecking.com — both Jeremy and I have built with and experienced their products and we are extremely satisfied. If you’d like to plant trees on non-forested land that you own or manage in the United States, don’t hesitate drop us a line at propagateag.com. If you have questions for us or a guest, about agroforestry, send us a message on social media or comment on this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.