The pleasure in cutting standing Sitka Spruce

[Darrin Turnbull]

Butter works well .

[skc101fc]

Mayonnaise is also really good. Don't use garlic or chilli flavour!.
Lidls or aldi is just fine, Hellmans is snobbish.
Just rub a dollop onto the skin, wherever the resin is, work it in like hand cream for a minute, then a quick rinse off with soap/ fairy liquid/ whatever and resin's gone. Couldn't believe what I was reading the first time, but gave it a go and it works- without mullering your skin.

[outinthewood]

Cocconut oil ! ok you may smell like a Bounty bar but better than a gone off burger after you've covered yourself in mayo !!!

[skc101fc]

Ooooooh that sounds yummy, and makes you think your somewhere far more exotic than standing alongside a screaming saw.

[agrimog]

baby oil, cheap stuff from aldi, rubbed and worked well into the black sticky gloop, washes off with plain soap and water, took ages to get the best stuff for geting rid of sitka crap cos I cut and mill tons  of the stuff, and some of the barrier cream from arco, the kind designed for ink and paint helps greatly

[difflock]

So to continue with my Sitka theme,

how long will they live?

how tall will they grow?

what girth might they achieve?

and what distances should I be leaving between the retained trees? (I forgot to measure, but probably  DBH's of 300mm ish) 

mth

EDIT;

just checked, the stronger ones are easily 400mm DBH

Edited March 8, 2018 by difflock

[MattyF]

Would not go in to sparse , there’s bands of what they call continuous cover for red squirrel etc in keilder that they never clear fell just thin , it’s pretty much a guarantee that it will blow when thinned..
Have climbed and dismantled them well over 40m ,recon where planted around 90 year ago... I think they would just keep on going height wise there are some monsters about !

[Khriss]

I wld get some Metrological data fr the area Diffloc n see where the prevailing blast come from and leave that area thick, then herring bone thin it back towards yr extraction routes - how big is the stand ? K

[Khriss]

( winching out ? Or forwarding ? )

[difflock]

prob about 4 acre,

I know which direction the prevailing wind comes from, and the direction of the windthrown trees is another clue.

I am winching out the thinnings & prepared to leave the  "felled/thinned" stuff that is ackward to access  on the ground for nature to take its course.

currently leaving about 3m between trees, suffice that the crowns are just still just interlocking

kinda a suck-it-and-see approach

I would be pleased to get another 20 years out of at least some of them.

mth