Thank you!
I keep day-dreaming about how to get long thin shreds from bark (how I'd do it if I owned a lumber mill and money were no object.)
- when running a log through a veneer-slicing machine, leave the bark ON the log. While spinning and slicing off bark shavings, have some diverter that throws the bark sheets or shreds one way, into the "gardeners' bin". Then, when you reach wood, throw the diverter the other way, into the "plywood bin".
- make a hydraulicly-driven curved cheese-grater blade or curved plane, where the curve would conform to the average circumference of a log. Drive the blade back and forth lengthwise along the bark to shave off 10 foot-long shreds, and later cut them to length. Rotate the log when you reach wood.
- collect long bark chunks from whatever process mills use now to de-bark. Slice them length-wise WITH the grain, probably with closely-spaced circular blades that pull the bark through as they cut. Find some way to split the long thick slices into long thin slices.
Also, if pine bark nuggets are helpful for aeration & drainage, and pine bark fibers partly replace peat but don't hold enough water for some purposes, I thought about the way they make porous, water-holding pellets by expanding shale or other rocks. Like vermiculite, but more porous.
Take moist bark shreds and small nuggets, then EXPAND them like popcorn, in a high-power microwave. If it puffed them up but left them solid enough to hold their shape, they might be even more usefull at replacing peat in inexpensive, well-draining mixes.
