The Harvesting Of Cork By Damion Rutherford At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Cork, also known as QUERCUS SUBER, botanically, is the bark of an oak tree. Grown in areas bordering the Mediterranean sea, it is an evergreen which grows in commercial stands. Portugal supplies approximately 50% , and Spain supplies about 25%. France, Morocco, Algeria, Italy and Tunisia make up the balance. Cork was used for fishing boats in ancient Egypt as early as 2,500 BC. In 400 BC, soles of shoes and stoppers for containers were made from cork. Conqueror Alexander the Great, was a famous user of cork. According to reports, a cork piece once in a turbulent river once saved him from drowning.

Cork is the only tree that can regenerate itself after each harvest, and with increased concern of the environment, it is a wonderful resource. The cork is not harvested until the tree is approximately 20 years old. Cork is then stripped off 2/3 of the tree. "Virgin Bark" is the very first bark that is taken from a tree. It has a grayish color to it and a very irregular surface. This is suitable for grinding into various minute sizes indeal for composition cork and cork insulation. This "virgin bark" has also become very popular in the use of the manufacturing of decorative items. Cork trees have a protective thin layer of inner bark that gives it a unique ability to survive and regenerate itself after the debarking process. The inner bark must not be damaged, therefore stripping the bark requires great skill. For the stripping process, a specially designed hatchet is used.

Until the cork oak is approximately 150 years old, it will have subsequent strippings of the tree every nine years, at which time the tree is then replaced with a much younger one. After the stripping of the "virgin bark", all stripping after that is called "refugo bark". Refugo bark looks different entirely because it is brown in color and has a much smoother surface. Mostly for grinding purposes is what the first crop of refugo bark is used for. After that, the subsequent strippings have better quality of cork that is made up of fewer and more closed pores (grains). The production of cork stoppers and other items make up the majority of these harvests.

The bark remains in the forest for several days to dry or in some cases, to be inspected by potential buyers, after the stripping process is completed. Purchasing cork bark is not an easy process because the quality not only varies from different forests, as well as different trees, but the same tree can produce different degrees of quality corks depending on its sunlight exposure.

Once the refugo bark is in the factory area, the bark is boiled to make the removal of the outer layer, easier, and the make the bark more elastic, in order to get it flattened out, should it be sold later on. Then the bark is sorted by the thickness, and then in turn sorted into the different qualities to help in the determination process of the sale price and/or suitable manufacturing use.

Cork with its unique qualities as well as being a natural product, is really unmatched by any other natural material found. Just one cubic inch of cork has no less than 200 million enclosed air cell, each that measure 1/1000" in diameter. Each cell is 14 sided, which means it virtually eliminates empty spaces between cells.

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