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Planting Hardwoods under strong Birch regen??


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Alright.

 

Just wondering the best way to plant some mixed hardwoods in an area with some very strong Birch regen??

Its a local owned wood which has been clea rfelled 5+? years ago and they still have some more mixed hardwoods to plant.

 

Seemingly the planting contractor who is planting some of the area has been down and says the Birch needs cut with brushcutters, which i totally agree with, some could be 4-5ft or higher.

My suggestion  was it might be worthwhile spraying the cut Birch stumps with Roundup/dye (unless anything better out there), all the brushcutting will be done by volanteers.

I'm worried that in 2-3 years time the birch will have came back as strong as anything and we will have to brushcut again, but now there will be trees planted in the ground. Even with the guards (not sure wot size, might just be canes and vole spirals? the last lot i planted there were, but there is also some tubes too)

Not sure the size but they said the worst bit could be 5Ha, so in my eyes quite  a big commitment for the foreseeable future as the hardwoods will take a while to truely establish (unlike ur SS, which would probably out compete the birch if u brush cutt it now) and not be at risk of shadeing out.

Can't remeber the exact %'s but quite a bit of Oak in there which will probably be the slowest

 

Wot would u advise?? The brushcutting is a no brainer and needs done.

But is it worth treating the cut stems?

Wot sort of cost or ammount of Roundup/Glyco would u need (say to treat a 5Ha plot)?

 

Also bear in mind the work will be done by volanteers so often lacking in numbers (never mind skills or common sense)

I thought 3-4 guys with brushcutters and 1 floowing behind treating stumps (if worthwhile)

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7 minutes ago, daveatdave said:

roundup/glycol will not have any affect on the cut stems as it needs to be taken in by the leaves , glycol plugs would work but would be expensive and time consuming for that area if you could use the tube guards then spray say in 2 years time that might work 

 I thought u could use gycol as a stump treatment?

Know we did on the railways, i think a different dosage rate thou.

But i stand to be corrected

 

Cheers

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roundup/glycol will not have any affect on the cut stems as it needs to be taken in by the leaves , glycol plugs would work but would be expensive and time consuming for that area if you could use the tube guards then spray say in 2 years time that might work 


Not exactly right, glyphosate works well as a stump treatment but it needs to be a 20-30% mix and it'll need applying directly to the stump, either with a small sprayer or paint brush.

I've used it to effectively treat all hardwoods and rhododendrons up to 2" when painted or sprayed on, if the stump are bigger then you may need to drill a few holes to hold the chemical on the stump.

The stumps will need treating within an hour or so of cutting to be effective too.
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Cheers saints, must admit i never ever thought of that.

Gave him a bell but not really going to work out with distances/timings etc lus he doesn't buy birch he's not cut/harvested himself. To be fair  i can understand that when he has to sort/grade it and use it, his boys will be doing that as they cut it and cut it to the right sizes.

Was a long shot but well worth a phone call.

 

Cheers departed i thought u could use it as a stump treatment althou i had forgot the concentrations didn't realise just as strong a mix.

I don't think much should be bigger than 3" so spray/paint on should be fine and even if the odd larger 1 survives not the end of the world u just don't want them all regening in a few years and smoothering the hardwoods.

 

Just trying to knock the vast majority back to give the hardwoods a chance.

 

I take it stump treatment will be worth the extra effort after the birch is cut??

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Why not favour the birch? 

 

I remember doing a job many years ago clearing stunning birch regen from a spruce plantation. The sitka was supposedly the improved genetic stock, but the birch still grew more quickly. 

 

I'd think about selectively thinning the birch once it's a bit older (another 5 years or so - just fell to waste), leaving the best stems and a bit more light around the better oak. The birch will act as a nurse crop, drawing the oak up. Much quicker rate of return on a birch crop, and if you're left with a nice final crop of oak, even better.

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33 minutes ago, Big J said:

I remember doing a job many years ago clearing stunning birch regen from a spruce plantation. The sitka was supposedly the improved genetic stock, but the birch still grew more quickly. 

I'll avoid the question about favouring birch

 

Back in 74 when landowners threw money at establishment because it only cost them 3p for every £1 the Economic forestry company charged them, the rest was avoided tax, I watched my foreman swipe a dense 3-8 year old  natural regen scots pine coup. We then planted corsican pine at 6ft apart in 8 ft rows.

 

The difference in yield class was supposed to make the corsican out produce the scots by a factor of two at full rotation (70 years I guess). This was the theory but by the time you apply net discounted costs on establishing corsican...

 

I never went back but those corsican would have grown so branchy they would  never made decent timber.

 

Actually in those days it was unusual for the mills we used to see corsican so it made less than scots for bars and sawlogs, twenty years later and a lot of corsican came on stream such that the mill set up and sharpening was slightly changed to favour corsican and it began to get difficult to sell scots to the big mills in Southampton and Hevingham.

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I take it stump treatment will be worth the extra effort after the birch is cut??



I'm not sure the effort of cutting and treating the birch will be worth it. I think you should follow what others have said about retaining at least some of the birch.
Stump treatment is very time consuming.
Big j's suggestion of thinning and retaining the best birch in a few years sounds like the best plan to me.

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