Low impact forestry services in Devon and the South West

[slack ma girdle]

7 hours ago, Big J said:

I was down on Dartmoor this morning looking at a second stage of oak thinning, so had a chance to see the areas we did in February. 

 

The area with the beech hasn't seen so much regen yet, but the oak area has rocketed away. 

 

 

That a fine looking well spaced wood, good potential for the future.

[Big J]

1 hour ago, slack ma girdle said:

That a fine looking well spaced wood, good potential for the future.

 

It's actually rather decent quality for Dartmoor. Good form and tight hearts, though admittedly the quality of the sawlog isn't the National Trust's primary concern.

[Big J]

Popped up to Chard today and the eucalyptus nitens from last year's clearfell are growing at an insane rate. Planted April 2020, starved of water until June and they are now averaging 2m. The one I'm stood next to isn't the tallest (tallest I reckon is 3.3m). They've grown 1m so far this season and I reckon they'll grow another 1.6m, so averaging 3.6m with some topping 5m by November.

 

I love eucalyptus 😁

Edited July 3, 2021 by Big J

[Dan Maynard]

Popped up to Chard today and the eucalyptus nitens from last year's clearfell are growing at an insane rate. Planted April 2020, starved of water until June and they are now averaging 2m. The one I'm stood next to isn't the tallest (tallest I reckon is 3.3m). They've grown 1m so far this season and I reckon they'll grow another 1.6m, so averaging 3.6m with some topping 5m by November.
 
I love eucalyptus [emoji16]

I keep seeing this photo and thinking it's proof you're four foot two - clearly only just above the foxgloves. And you have a dwarven beard.

Rumbled.

Time to give up this "Big" J online persona you've built up, I reckon.

[Big J]

2 hours ago, Dan Maynard said:

I keep seeing this photo and thinking it's proof you're four foot two - clearly only just above the foxgloves. And you have a dwarven beard.

Rumbled.

Time to give up this "Big" J online persona you've built up, I reckon.

Hahahaha 😄😝

 

Everything has grown like mad lately with the regular and sometimes extreme rainfall (Chard had 90mm in 3 hours last Monday). I felt like a bit of a dwarf amongst those monster foxgloves

[AHPP]

Everything apart from the carriageways, no doubt.

[Big J]

We're on a nice first thinnings site near Barnstaple with some rapidly grown larch and sitka. It's not been well planted (in terms of spacing, so the rack in the photo starts off at about 5m wide and ends up at lest than 3m, but we're getting through it.

 

Probably the last outing for the Kranman processor, but it's performing brilliantly. It's got about 450t ahead of it to do (at least) but it's ideal most of the block as it's too steep to drive for any small machine. As such, the fact that it winch loads itself saves a lot of double handling. 

 

The complete rack (33 trees or so) took only 2hrs to process, and I forwarded it out in another 45 minutes with the Vimek, totalling about 9 tonne. 

 

We're not cutting sawlog out of the larch as it's bendy as hell (you could scrabble some, but it's not worth it) but we are cutting 3.7s in the spruce.

 

[Big J]

Onto the spruce racks now. Steep ground and hairy trees but almost a third sawlog. Did 15t winched, processed and extracted by myself today (with the trees already felled ahead of me). It's productive, but there was a fair bit of brash handling with the forwarder as I had to build a shelf of brash to spit the logs into. The track isn't wide enough and there is a lane below it. 

 

Either way, we're only a touch less productive than the harvester operator (who was unable to reach the job in time) and more profitable. It's just a hard graft. I did 5 miles of trogging up and down the hill with the winch line today.

[Big J]

A replanting site near Dulverton. 4000 eucalyptus 😎

 

And the Vimek on our current thinning site. I'm enjoying this one, even if it's taking ages.

 

 

 

[Doug Tait]

24 minutes ago, Big J said:

A replanting site near Dulverton. 4000 eucalyptus 😎

 

And the Vimek on our current thinning site. I'm enjoying this one, even if it's taking ages.

 

 

 

Something very pleasing about that top photo J. Those lines of planting down the hill with the harvested stuff neatly stacked at the bottom.