Wood Chip & Water

[HeartwoodTrees]

We rent a farm yard and have made a makeshift woodchip car park for the staff to park their cars on. However over the last week it has rained considerably and where the puddles gather near to the woodchip you can different coloured water coming from where the woodchip is dark & light browns etc... My question is what is this and is it dangerous to the environment that surrounds it? My landlord farmer seems to think it will kill a row of established 40ft conifers if it gets near them. I think it is possibly something to do with the natural properties of the wood and sucroses or something to do with the lignin.? Any advice would be appreciated as i'd like to go back to him with a rock solid factual answer....

[Brushcutter]

Its tannins running out.

[Homegrown]

We rent a farm yard and have made a makeshift woodchip car park for the staff to park their cars on. However over the last week it has rained considerably and where the puddles gather near to the woodchip you can different coloured water coming from where the woodchip is dark & light browns etc... My question is what is this and is it dangerous to the environment that surrounds it? My landlord farmer seems to think it will kill a row of established 40ft conifers if it gets near them. I think it is possibly something to do with the natural properties of the wood and sucroses or something to do with the lignin.? Any advice would be appreciated as i'd like to go back to him with a rock solid factual answer....

 

The leachate from the chip contains a mixture of chemicals, some are attractive to bugs in the soil and as these digest them the soil is robbed of oxygen, this lack of soil oxygen is what can kill roots and yes there is an old nursery in Redhill that was used to store chip and the mature conifer screen around it is now dead and gone.

[renewablejohn]

Just hope EA are not reading this. Whatever you do dont let the brown run off get into streams with fish in or ponds with newts in. If you do it may prove very costly.