Drying or insect problem?

[richtes]

Moving and going through what's on the lumber rack. Cherry board. I'm thinking drying more than insect

Split into two boards when I picked it up

Thanks,
Rich

[ianab]

I would suspect it's a "heart check", which is like a star shaped crack radiating from the centre of the log, As the wood dried it got worse, until the board fell in 1/2. As you saw boards closer to the heart, you get into that cracked area.


So although it happened as the board dried, the defect was there from the original log. 

Sometimes it's possible to orientate the log so you leave the heart check in one or 2 junk boards, and the rest are OK.