Hybrid poplar plantation growth rates?

[MattyF]

Poplar hornet moth was a big problem in some of the plantations in east anglia I’ve seen .. would not plant it on that basis really.
Plus I found you could not give it away.

[Big J]

2 minutes ago, MattyF said:

Poplar hornet moth was a big problem in some of the plantations in east anglia I’ve seen .. would not plant it on that basis really.
Plus I found you could not give it away.

There is a bloody pest/disease for every species! 

 

Thanks for the input though. No issue shifting it for biomass here, I don't think.

[MattyF]

That’s probably true these days j but I know they where planted for timber 30-40 years ago it was for that reason too , I did hear originally it was Bryant May who planted them for matches but every one got lighters , don’t know how much truth is in that but going back 10 years or more when they where ready for harvest no one wanted them the market had changed and folk where stuck with a load of 100ft plus trees no one wanted and where starting to decline ,I think if we got paid a few hundred for an Arctic it was good money most of the felling was done on habitat restoration from memory you could not of got the money back from the timber.
I did start taking photos of all the trees I had seen fail due to hornet moth as I was told forest research said there was no link between hornet moth and stem /root decay and I had seen hole avenues and plantations blow over with moth holes and decay.

[Big J]

13 minutes ago, MattyF said:

That’s probably true these days j but I know they where planted for timber 30-40 years ago it was for that reason too , I did hear originally it was Bryant May who planted them for matches but every one got lighters , don’t know how much truth is in that but going back 10 years or more when they where ready for harvest no one wanted them the market had changed and folk where stuck with a load of 100ft plus trees no one wanted and where starting to decline ,I think if we got paid a few hundred for an Arctic it was good money most of the felling was done on habitat restoration from memory you could not of got the money back from the timber.
I did start taking photos of all the trees I had seen fail due to hornet moth as I was told forest research said there was no link between hornet moth and stem /root decay and I had seen hole avenues and plantations blow over with moth holes and decay.

It might be worth having a conversation with the woodland officer to see what is threatening them down here.

 

As far as I can tell, if it's vaguely tidy timber, chip is the bottom of the market down here. The fall back position if you will. I can't see that they'd turn it away in Kent at Sandwich.

[openspaceman]

50 minutes ago, MattyF said:

That’s probably true these days j but I know they where planted for timber 30-40 years ago it was for that reason too , I did hear originally it was Bryant May who planted them for matches but every one got lighters , don’t know how much truth is in that but going back 10 years or more when they where ready for harvest no one wanted them the market had changed and folk where stuck with a load of 100ft plus trees no one wanted and where starting to decline ,I

The Bryant and May plantings were over by 1974 I think but I was doing the initial pruning, 2p per tree to 8ft and an extra 1/2p to take the spiral guard off. The planting was at 8m final crop spacing and the intention was to produce stems clear of knots to 6m for peeler logs at P+25. They would have needed a few further lifts to keep all the knots in a 4" core.

 

I still drive past one block I did and it has never been touched since so the trees are too knotty for most purposes. I watched many of the other blocks being pushed over and burned in the 80s and 90s as they were reverted to fields for horseyculture.

[Big J]

38 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

The Bryant and May plantings were over by 1974 I think but I was doing the initial pruning, 2p per tree to 8ft and an extra 1/2p to take the spiral guard off. The planting was at 8m final crop spacing and the intention was to produce stems clear of knots to 6m for peeler logs at P+25. They would have needed a few further lifts to keep all the knots in a 4" core.

 

I still drive past one block I did and it has never been touched since so the trees are too knotty for most purposes. I watched many of the other blocks being pushed over and burned in the 80s and 90s as they were reverted to fields for horseyculture.

Very interesting to hear. There is a random block of about 110 such poplar just by the motorway here. They will be an absolute pig to get out due to lack of access, so I've no idea why they were planted there. 

 

As I said before, at least with biomass there is a viable outlet for such timber now.

[openspaceman]

41 minutes ago, Big J said:

Very interesting to hear. There is a random block of about 110 such poplar just by the motorway here. They will be an absolute pig to get out due to lack of access, so I've no idea why they were planted there. 

I think the Poplar Timber Co were promoting poplar planting into the late 90s in the SW as the FC were still willing to pay grants  even though the markets weren't there even then.

41 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

As I said before, at least with biomass there is a viable outlet for such timber now. 

When the firm I worked for were poking 500 tonne a week into the Slough Estates power station  the maximum moisture content was supposed to be 45%, poplar and most softwoods couldn't meet this freshly felled so I don't know what happens nowadays, if it's paid on a dry matter basis it may not look so promising.

[Youngstu]

Where I was on holiday last year near Cognac in France they were harvesting some of the blocks of poplar (which variety I have no idea). They are planted all over the place in between the vineyards and seem to be planted at final spacings, all beautifully neat and well looked after. The signs on the timber were to do with paper manufacturing, but the guy I managed a conversation with (my crap French!) said that the bigger stuff is used for the fruit and cheese boxes, then the small stuff for paper. 

 

[ESS]

There is an estate just outside Kings Lynn covered in the stuff, highly managed but giving very little return. The intention was that the sawlog would eventually go for the export peeling market.Last time I was on there thinnings were making £24/t roadside. 

I was buying for export for a company 5 years ago, when you did the costings the return was not much better than harvesting rate, and that was on an average purchase price of £5.50/m standing.

Chip was £40/t blown into trailer, but that was a one off,i doubt green Poplar chip would realise much more than that now delivered because of moisture content as already stated.Clean up after Poplar felling can be costly because of shatter.

Most of the parcels I bought were ex Bryants plantings,even with their expertise there were some parcels that had 80% + butt rot, in some cases a 3m length wouldn't sound the log out.

[Big J]

One of the potential avenues for usage for poplar is low grade timber to form structural walls using a method called Brettstapel:

 

http://www.brettstapel.org/Brettstapel/What_is_it.html

 

My wife's old practice did two Brettstapel buildings in Scotland, and as well as being ecologically superb, it does make use of low-grade timber. I'm not precisely sure how poplar would perform in this scenario, but it's worth investigating. 

 

One thing that occured to me is that it could perhaps be used as part of a wall with a designed moisture gradient. As we all know, poplar is super hydroscopic, so potentially you build a timber cassette (essentially a SIPs panel) with poplar forming the inside wall and spruce on the outside. The poplar would suck excess moisture from the air inside the rooms for it to move through the wall outside. Just ideas, but I find it interesting!