Hybrid poplar plantation growth rates?

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Youngstu said:

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. 

It's logical if you think about it, if you prune the butt to give 6m of clear stem for peeling then you'll have 15+metres of knotty top for pulp[1]. Before plastic peeled punnets were used for all sorts of  vegetables and with the swing against plastic packaging in the public's perception it may be worth pursuing again[2] but the management has to be sustained  rather than the crop being abandoned as in the Bryant and May case. UK needs to adopt the French long term view on timber growing rather than FC led short term grant getting. Let's not go overboard in decrying poplar it does have potential and I think @Billhook on here successfully built a cabin from it.

 

[1]This was what was annoying in the 70s when paper recycling  became the way to save the planet, it depressed the market for the poorer grades in the top,  put more of the harvesting cost onto the rest of the tree and  increased the diameter of  lop and top left on site.

 

[2]Actually the use of wood instead of plastic  from fossil fuels makes sense for a lot of things, I started supplying birch poles for brush heads and even way back then the  owner of the business said his fortunes  were inversely  proportional to the price of oil, if oil went up Addis brushes went up and so he sold more wooden brush heads, eventually even though the ancient turning machines owed him nothing the labour couldn't compete with the speed of injection moulding and the cost of oil pumped out of the ground compared with motor manual harvesting of small diameter poles.

 

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, ESS said:

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.

Could some of this be due to the late harvesting, i.e. the B&M rotation was only 25 years, so rot would not set in, leave them for 40 years and more  chance of rot?

[ESS]

1 minute ago, openspaceman said:

Could some of this be due to the late harvesting, i.e. the B&M rotation was only 25 years, so rot would not set in, leave them for 40 years and more  chance of rot?

Possibly, although it seemed to be site specific rather than age. I tend to think it was a ground related thing, parcels I was buying a few miles away , some trees well in excess of 10m volume were 100% sound. There is a good possibility that they would have reached market before rotting under the B+M scheme, in fairness the ex sites I have seen of theirs , which seems to be virtually every commercial stand in the country would suggest they knew their stuff.

[ESS]

33 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

 

 

[2]Actually the use of wood instead of plastic  from fossil fuels makes sense for a lot of things, I started supplying birch poles for brush heads .

 

Was this Kent Woodware ?

[openspaceman]

3 minutes ago, ESS said:

Was this Kent Woodware ?

Yes, Peter Dunlop IIRC it was a long time ago. I also supplied Hill at Mere and Harris at Bromsgrove.

[ESS]

1 minute ago, openspaceman said:

Yes, Peter Dunlop IIRC it was a long time ago. I also supplied Hill at Mere and Harris at Bromsgrove.

Yes, Kent were probably the largest ones left at the time.Dont know if you ever saw their yard? they used end stack every pole .

We used to supply a couple in the north, Syc, birch, ash, and one of them took alder too. Striping was bit of a ballache hey ?

[Stubby]

2 hours ago, Big J said:

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!

Hydroscopic is a means of looking under water ( with a hydroscope ) . Pop is hygroscopic . Its the ped in me

[sandspider]

Is pop any good as firewood? I had the impression it wasn't great... (But could plant a few for my firewood coppice if it grows this quickly and is worth the effort...)

[Stubby]

27 minutes ago, sandspider said:

Is pop any good as firewood? I had the impression it wasn't great... (But could plant a few for my firewood coppice if it grows this quickly and is worth the effort...)

All the pop I have burnt has been ok . Can't say what variant though . It is very important to keep it dry once split ( more so than other woods ) as it soaks up moisture like blotting paper . Hygroscopic .

[Ty Korrigan]

I've just got in from a RDV with a forestry expert.

Valuation of a plantation of hybrid pops in Central Brittany

These are undersized being planted too close together.

30m tall and only 50cms DBH around the margins.

Had they'd been planted better, at 30years old they'd all be closer 60cm

However, the client has an air of desperation about him so will probably want to sell.

However, access needs improvement, gate and trees must go, they must be loaded roadside on a swift departmental road so permissions sought for road control.

Plus they must be loaded almost as soon as harvested due to the space constraints.

Client thinks he is sitting on a gold mine.

He has already made it quite clear he begrudges paying in advance for a valuation so he may have an aneurysm once he recieves his cost break down.

Stuart