Pollards, the forgotten art-discussion

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

I know that man had created unnatural habitat that has been in place so long that species have developed to exploit it. Coppicing is a good example, butterflies have evolved over a thousand years to live in newly cut coppice, our technological age has left the coppice to stand in the last 50 years and the butterfilies cannot evolve quickly enough to survive elsewhere.

 

really?

 

so you dont think that butterflies evolved before mans intervention, and lived off the grasslands and meadows created by ancient and very destructive herbivores, animals that would have created (like elephants in the savana) large areas of progessive habitat? and then we came along and repeated what was already a set of circumstances that benifitted plants and animals already well evolved to take advantage of the situation?

[Catweazle]

really?

 

so you dont think that butterflies evolved before mans intervention, and lived off the grasslands and meadows created by ancient and very destructive herbivores, animals that would have created (like elephants in the savana) large areas of progessive habitat? and then we came along and repeated what was already a set of circumstances that benifitted plants and animals already well evolved to take advantage of the situation?

 

Yes, of course they evolved before, what I'm saying is that pace of change of our habits can outpace evolution. The butterflies struggle to evolve as quickly as man can change from needing coppice wood to neglecting it. If a species has lived in a wood that has been coppiced for 500 years it continually migrates to the youngest part of the wood, it evolves to rely on it, if man stops cutting it the species has nowhere to go and dies.

 

Woodland clearing are vital

Butterflies, like the High Brown Fritillary, live in woodland clearings where trees have recently been cut down or coppiced, to then grow up again in a sustainable and natural cycle. Such rich and diverse habitat includes areas of growing trees, deadwood, grass, bracken and open scrub giving great value to wildlife. However, woodland practices such as coppicing and thinning have declined, and many woodland areas have become increasingly shady and overgrown.

 

To improve the habitat for these threatened butterflies and encourage recolonisation in the Morecambe Bay Limestones, the National Trust will be using the WIG funding to create glades and help develop the local coppice industry.

 

The National Trust's Alan Ferguson, says: "This grant is an exciting boost to The National Trust's Morecambe Bay Properties twin aims to sustainably manage land for access and wildlife. By returning previously worked coppice blocks back to production there is a gain for the landscape, wildlife and future employment in a declined industry. The cyclical production and sale of local produce to a local market has to make sense."

 

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/cumbria-butterflies090.html#cr

Edited December 22, 2009 by Catweazle
Added quote and link

[paradise]

hamadryad, if I understand you correctly, you're saying we've become very conservative in our pruning practices because we are too worried about death and decay.

 

But isn't this because we now prune for different purposes? Rather than pruning for useful end products (and allowing for wastage) we now mostly prune for amenity and safety.

 

I wish we could prune for useful end products myself - I think it would make arboriculture much more interesting - but it isn't economically viable, and also too many of the trees we work on are in very built-up areas so the safety aspect can't be ignored.

 

This isn't to say you aren't right about old-style pollarding being much more 'brutal' than we give it credit for - though I'd be interested in some more concrete evidence - but this would still only be suitable in certain (mostly rural) situations, don't you think?

[bob]

the surrounding trees could do with a selective thin

get rid of the bracken

the oak looks like it,s in a nice woodland setting so should be left to do what it wants and what nature dictates

 

but not sure why that photo is in a thread titled pollards

as i hope your not going to reveal you or someone else pollarded it:confused1:

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

hamadryad, if I understand you correctly, you're saying we've become very conservative in our pruning practices because we are too worried about death and decay.

 

But isn't this because we now prune for different purposes? Rather than pruning for useful end products (and allowing for wastage) we now mostly prune for amenity and safety.

 

I wish we could prune for useful end products myself - I think it would make arboriculture much more interesting - but it isn't economically viable, and also too many of the trees we work on are in very built-up areas so the safety aspect can't be ignored.

 

This isn't to say you aren't right about old-style pollarding being much more 'brutal' than we give it credit for - though I'd be interested in some more concrete evidence - but this would still only be suitable in certain (mostly rural) situations, don't you think?

 

it is clear my message is not YET fully understood, but it will be and i hope youll all continue to comment and bear with me. I am trying to clarify each point raised but all the while also trying to show some observations that i think may prove helpfull in the understanding of the pollard.

 

To keep things interesting i am going to insert another image for comment, i hope at least some will think about the evolution of the tree fungi relationship.

 

Why have self destruct genetics in trees not been lost in evolution?

 

doesnt the theory of evolution not eliminate such ridiculous defects, UNLESS they are adventigous!

 

[Stephen Blair]

i reckon that old oak had been pollarded many moons ago, now i see it has shed or lost a third of its crown, it has been off for a while going by the brambles growing over the fallen stem and i now see a young shoot or even young sappling growing out the the trunk where the limb came off. Thats what i see.

[paradise]

I'm not sure it's true to say trees have self-destruct genetics is it? It's more true of animals than trees. Trees that die of 'old age' die because the fundamental growth pattern of a tree (adding a new cone of wood every year) cannot continue forever.

 

As for the tree-fungi relationship, it is well understood that certain fungi are beneficial to the tree, and Alan Rayner has argued that we shouldn't see even 'parasitic' fungi as invading pathogens. Are you saying something besides this?

 

I'd like to understand what you're saying, because it sounds interesting, but couldn't you just, y'know, say it?

[MattyF]

There are two ways of looking at this image, discuss what you see here, please i would like to understand what YOU all see.

 

[ATTACH]26150[/ATTACH]

 

That oaks at burnham???pretty sure thats the one i sat on with my nephew and we got covered in wood ants in the summer!

I think pollards have a very valid part to play in future tree managment i think the way shigo has developed crown reconstruction and turned the whole arboricultral world against pollarding(well maybe not in the uk!} is not particually constructive... personally i think there is nothing better looking than a gnarled up ancient pollard!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

i reckon that old oak had been pollarded many moons ago, now i see it has shed or lost a third of its crown, it has been off for a while going by the brambles growing over the fallen stem and i now see a young shoot or even young sappling growing out the the trunk where the limb came off. Thats what i see.

 

Forget about the birch seedling growing out of the decay pocket (another form of evidance for duration, time of failure) do you mean the sprout of new growth ON the trunk, where once there would have been no room nor more importantly light to allow this.

 

What some see as "destruction" i see Re-trenchment assitance by an "invading, other view" colonisation of a fungi.

 

A tree has the capacity for eternal life, but ONLY when certain fungi "assist"

 

most people would fear re pollard operations on a tree of this age and stature, but observation in the real world tells us that even a tree of this age and physiological dysfuntion can and will retrench regenerate and promote growth where once it was unable.

 

i am not suggesting we go and take the other main limbs off! before anyone gets in a big state! what i am trying to lead to is an appreciation of what role fungi play in the "imortality" of the tree.

[paradise]

MattyF, did Shigo turn people against pollarding though? I thought he simply said that pollarding is properly done on a regular cycle and cut back to the same point, and therefore that chopping the ends/tops off branches whenever we feel like it does not constitute pollarding and should be avoided.