Purchasing 25 acre oak stand in France

[Stubby]

56 minutes ago, JonnoR said:

Spent the morning cutting, sorting and stacking logs and getting them off the ground.  Beyond the obvious benefits of keeping the base dry, I've noticed that neighbours are commenting on how smart the woodland looks.  There's literally zero visual impact on the woodland, because all this stuff is windfall or dead standing, but by putting a few deliberately stacked woodpiles in open view, it's having an overall positive influence on the perceived care being taken.  

Yes its amazing the affect a neat stack has with all the " white faces " all lined up and tidy. 🙂

[JonnoR]

On 09/01/2022 at 16:51, openspaceman said:

Yes it is hard to decide from photos but the planting spacing and height of clear stem demonstrates the difference between British and French sylviculture. In england I think all the hornbeam woods I worked were out of rotation coppice.

 

The french way seems to go for long clear stems whereas we tended to aim for short fat butts of oak with large canopies standing out as islands in a sea of underwood.

 

I would thin it very gently as the crowns seem very thin and ideally should never get to be less than 40% of the height so it will take time for them to exploit any new space you give them. What is hornbeam used for in france?

I finally got round to getting some of those cramped hornbeams thinned out today. Just opened the canopy up a little and got rid of the thinnest crowned trees where they were clearly starting to be dominated by their neighbours.

 

I finished off the fuel in the Stihl ms261, then got out my new HUSQVARNA 540i XP, which is a little ripper in this sort of timber.  For this sort of work it's perfect and as much as I love my ms261 I'll be reaching for the Husky more often I think.

 

Anyway, thanks once again for the tips and comments 🙂

 

Jonno

[Stere]

Are you sure they are hornbeam?

 

Looks abit more like ash?

 

 

[JonnoR]

25 minutes ago, Stere said:

Are you sure they are hornbeam?

 

Looks abit more like ash?

 

 

Mostly hornbeam and oak here - only very very few ash in the forest as a whole.  This lot is a hornbeam with some self-seeded oak.