Poplar, best wood for fender's?

I just read an article stating that poplar is the best generic wood for fender products. Its better then alder and ash. Fender guitars were orignially in poplar but the furnture boom in the '60's made poplar to scarce and so fender switched to alder. Does anyone agree with this? I wonder why the standard mexicans came in poplar and why they discontinued them....

It might be benefital to just change the next on my mexican, since my pick ups have been change to get a quality fender if poplar is superior in tonal qualities and sustain.

The only drawback with poplar is its greenish tint so it cannot be used in non opaque colour guitars.

I was under the impression that original strats were ash and teles were alder. Poplar is one of the most common woods like pine. Nothing I've ever read on tone woods has even mentioned poplar as a possibility.
For a long time a majority of cheap guitars were made of basswood, only recently have I even heard of anyone making a guitar out of poplar. As a generic tone wood? hehe the word generic should be key there.

I've never once read or heard anything about poplar being the traditional Fender tonewood, early Broadcasters,Esquires and Tele's were ash with a few factory freaks being made from pine, 50's Strats were ash or alder, alder usaully being used for painted models, I don't think Fender started using poplar until late 80's or early 90's, and that wasn't just the MIM's, some of the MIA's were poplar with ash veneer. As far as their being a poplar shortage in the 60's, I think this is about as likely as a sand shortage in the Sahara. There is nothing wrong with poplar as a tone wood, it probably falls in somewhere between alder and basswood, in weight and tone and just like in furnituremaking, it's not a face wood so it's no good for a clear finish. If someone ever dubbs Poplar as the "magic tonewood" and it gets the Tonewood Mojo, it probably won't be looked down on like it is now, their have probably been a bazillion guitars made from it in the past 20 years, alot of Squiers,Affinitys,MIM&MIA Fenders, Samicks and if we started scratching some paint off from some Epiphones it would be no surprise to find some there. If PRS or Gibson etc... started making some special edition guitar from poplar and big slab of curly maple and advertised the wonderful sonic qualities of Poplar, well opinons would probably change overnight, bottom line is , a guitar made from poplar that sounds good, is a guitar that sounds good, but like your girlfriend's ugly sister, ain't much to look at or asked to dance, BTW Polera, where did you come across this info?............

So im not crazy! here :) http://www.allthingsstrat.com/2004%20reviews/Mooretone%20Guitars/askexpert2.htm

The way I see it the specific guitar is more important that the wood. Might poplar have more potential than ash? Sure, but at the same time you take an average-sounding poplar guitar and put it by a great-sounding alder guitar I'll always pick the alder.

poplar is mostley used for prototype guitars. its grain is pretty flat and it usually has green stains in it. it is fairly cheap thats why they use it.
i would compare poplar is like a cheap grade alder, much like agathis is to mahogany

haha i just read that link... its completely different than what i thought.. i might be thinking basswood with the green stains.. but that site also is wrong about it being hard to find.. its at home depot.. unless they ment in the 60's. Ive always reguarded poplar as a prototype wood

I read the link too, and I find the information to be bogus , historically and technically, I think the writer is trying to build some "MOJO" into poplar, woods that need grain filler lose tone because the pores of the wood are filled up with all that "gunk", so I guess all those thousands of guitars that have been built from mahoghany sound bad ?, toneless ?, so if you own a Les Paul, PRS, SG, Explorer, Flying V, etc,etc.. , you should dump that tone dog and run out and grab one of this guy's poplar tone wonders, that link has more fairy tales in it that the Brothers Grimm Library, the only thing I can agree with is poplar as a tone wood is ok, the rest is in the misinformed or delusional category............................BTW, I have a limited quanity of grade AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA poplar I'd be willing to sell for $200 per bd ft, the first 100 buyers will also receive some magic beans with their purchase... :D