Fresh Cut Smoking Wood

[jtemple]

My aunt has several fruit trees and I have obtained a pretty large quantity of perfectly sized wood chunks from cherry, apple, pear, and pretty soon prune trees.

Are there any issues with using homegrown wood for smoking? I would guess no, since they're all natural; no pesticides or anything like that were used on the trees.

What about drying the chunks out? Is that even necessary, or is it fine to just use them right after they were cut?

[willys1]

I'm not an expert on using wood for smoking as charcoal provides enough smoke flavor for my family's tastes. I have, however, burned a lot of wood for home heating, fireplaces etc and fresh cut wood puts off a lot more smoke and soot than seasoned wood. I suspect fresh cut will put off too heavy of smoke for good meat flavor. I would store that wood in a dry, warm space over the winter and plan to use it next summer. If you want to speed up the process, spread some chunks on a baking sheet and throw it in the oven while it cools down after cooking  a few times. 

[JeffieBoy]

I will take my wood wherever I can find it.  I have made a contact at a tree cutting company and they have freely given me fresh cut biscuits of Crab Apple, Sugar Maple, Red Oak, etc.  I usually let them dry for six months or so in my shed, then debark the wood and chunk it up.  It gets stored in mesh onion bags hanging on the wall of my garage.  
 

I prefer to let the wood dry as “you only want to kiss the meat with smoke, not turn it into an ash tray”.