Generally you want to try to get your quartersawn orientation within about 5 degrees of perpendicular to the face(although I would personally would never waste wood that is say 10-15 degrees off because it is just dandy in terms of function-IMO). You want to limit your face grain(this is not the growth rings) runnout (this is where splitting comes into play) to within about 2% (this translates to about 1/2" along 24"), which is not too hard to do as long as you follow the direction the wood naturally splits. I believe the testing that has been done has shown that less than 2% runnout has little effect on strength, the higher the degree of runnout the more loss you will see in strength. Some builders are quite absolute and will accept absolutely no runnout to speak of, which is very challenging to find in wood that needs to be cut 21"+ in length and 8"+ in width. I figure as long as you make sure your within 2% your doing just fine.
Good luck, and be sure to dry that Spruce ASAP to avoid discoloration (cut fast/ dry fast!)
Rich
Thanks Rich, I have been discussing with Chris how I should have started the job. I split what was left from my first saw cuts over the 24" length It was almost 2" ~ 8 %. Soooo , I am going to reverse brace it and make a solice out of it. I have lots of wood left and will try again after splitting the billits off this time.