An Idiot's guide to Ancient Woodland management

[the village idiot]

7 hours ago, openspaceman said:

Does this not constitute engineering works?

 

Disposing of the spoil also needing permission or an EA exemption?

 

In practice as long as you stay under the radar...

It's a valid point. To my knowledge we didn't require any special permissions. We certainly weren't asked to provide proof of any.

 

The spoil was spread in a thin layer around the periphery of the ponds inside the Wood. I guess you may need authorisation if you plan to spread spoil on nearby fields.

 

These works are best carried out in Winter to limit disruption to newts and toads etc. Carting the spoil out of the Wood on winter rides is likely to churn the ground up significantly unless you hit a series of particularly hard frosts. Spreading the spoil on the forest floor is not ideal either, it's one of the calls you'd have to make as the woodland manager.

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, the village idiot said:

To my knowledge we didn't require any special permissions.

Which is why I alluded to the requirement, grasshopper.

 

Outwith an urban environment no one from the planning department or EA seem concerned.

[saintsman54]

21 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

Are there any benefits at all? 

 

I'm curious. In 'your' wood it sounds that your aims and objectives are all to the good and a SSSI designation would appear to be a handicap rather than an asset. 

A SSSI designation can make it easier to receive some types of grant funding. For example, if you had an un-managed woodland with some rare species still holding on (and your plan was to initiate restoration), then it could be advantageous for it to be designated.

 

Great thread TVI, keep it up ?

Edited December 9, 2019 by saintsman54

[Gary Prentice]

12 minutes ago, saintsman54 said:

A SSSI designation can make it easier to receive some types of grant funding. For example, if you had an un-managed woodland with some rare species still holding on (and your plan was to initiate restoration), then it could be advantageous for it to be designated.

 

Great thread TVI, keep it up ?

Thanks, I wondered about the funding side of things. 

[the village idiot]

6 hours ago, saintsman54 said:

A SSSI designation can make it easier to receive some types of grant funding. For example, if you had an un-managed woodland with some rare species still holding on (and your plan was to initiate restoration), then it could be advantageous for it to be designated.

 

Great thread TVI, keep it up ?

Thanks saintsman.

 

You are right, a SSSI designation does (literally) score you more points when going for the grant payments, particularly the multi-annual payments. Your woodland has to achieve a certain points score to be considered eligible for grant assistance.

 

As mentioned before, it is debatable whether it is worth going for the multi-annual payments (for general improvement works) if the woodland area is very small. Even if it is a SSSI. The designation doesn't get you additional money, it just scores you more points.

 

The payment (if your 'woodland score' is high enough) is a flat rate of £100/hectare/per year. I'm not sure the money received would be worth the paperwork hassle on a woodland under 10 acres or so in size. 

 

I may even be right in thinking that blocks of under 5 hectares automatically don't qualify for this type of grant assistance. You can however join blocks together to make a bigger woodland area if you have scattered small woodlands on the same holding. I could do with double checking this, and it could all change when we go over to the new ELMS grant scheme in a few years time.

[the village idiot]

MULCHER CULTURE.

 

So, after a site assessment from Daniel, the operations manager at Kingwell Holdings, this monster of a machine turned up at the Wood.

 

 

It is quite a few tons of German engineering with a 400hp engine powering a 2.5mtr mulching head.

 

 

The beauty of this machine for us was that it only penetrates the ground to the depth of the rotor teeth. Only the top couple of inches of soil are disturbed, but anything above ground level is eaten for breakfast. Perfect for grinding away large stumps.

 

The plan was for the machine to remove the stumps from zones 1 and 2 of our 3 zone ride edges so that we could then mow the regeneration on a rotation with our tractor and chain swipe. We had calculated that we could  just about cover all the rides in the Northern portion of the wood (50 acres) in the 5 days we had the mulcher for.

Our 'back of a fag packet' calculation proved to be way out. The mulcher was so effective that the North Wood was completed in one and a half days, leaving us with three and a half days to do all of the other rides we had opened up. This was most excellent!

 

Steve and I had spent two days with a hired in large saw taking the biggest stumps down a bit as we thought this would speed up the subsequent mulching process.

 

 

This turned out in hindsight to be a complete waste of time. The Mulcher hardly even noticed passing through stumps like the one above. Even the colossal multi-stemmed Ash stools several feet in diameter only kept the mulcher head busy for a minute or two.

 

After 5 days of carefully supervised mulching we had covered several miles of ride, 5-7 meters down each side, and several miles of access track, with not a stump left in sight. The outermost zone (zone 3) was left un-mulched down each ride edge. We wanted this to develop into shrubby coppice growth to be cut every 10 years or so with chainsaws. Zone 3's were not going to be mown so stumps weren't a problem.

 

Below are some pictures of the mulcher in action. In the last picture you can clearly make out the brambly zone 3's left to carry on growing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This looks like a seriously heavy intervention, and it is. We are very confident however that these ride edges will green back up in no time and develop the lush, vibrant and varied habitat that we are after. Only time will tell if we have seriously over-reached with this one, but we did our homework and are anticipating spectacular results over the next two to three years.

 

A special shout out has to go to Justin Kingwell. He is the owner of the company and was our driver for the week.

There is no terrain where he is not prepared to take his very expensive machines. The concrete roadways didn't phase him a bit, nor did the potential prospect of the odd unexploded bomb! He mulches on regardless with a happy smile on his face. It was a joy having him around.

 

The regeneration of the vegetation on these ride edges is going to be monitored by our conservation guru Juliet. I'll keep you all posted on how they develop.

 

Next up, firewood. The revenue generator.

 

[Bolt]

 

Cheers,  that’s the ‘spot the power line’ photo sorted for this years company Christmas fete.

[the village idiot]

8 minutes ago, Bolt said:

 

Cheers,  that’s the ‘spot the power line’ photo sorted for this years company Christmas fete.

It's actually destined to be a temporary runway. We've got a customs dodging cargo plane load of chocolate hobnobs due next week. 

 

They can also get jammy dodgers if anyone wants to come in on it?

[eggsarascal]

5 hours ago, the village idiot said:

It's actually destined to be a temporary runway. We've got a customs dodging cargo plane load of chocolate hobnobs due next week. 

 

They can also get jammy dodgers if anyone wants to come in on it?

I don't know where you get it from TVI, I thought I was cracked but, you take the biscuit.

[Woodsman1967]

On 09/12/2019 at 18:27, the village idiot said:

MULCHER CULTURE.

 

So, after a site assessment from Daniel, the operations manager at Kingwell Holdings, this monster of a machine turned up at the Wood.

 

 

It is quite a few tons of German engineering with a 400hp engine powering a 2.5mtr mulching head.

 

 

The beauty of this machine for us was that it only penetrates the ground to the depth of the rotor teeth. Only the top couple of inches of soil are disturbed, but anything above ground level is eaten for breakfast. Perfect for grinding away large stumps.

 

The plan was for the machine to remove the stumps from zones 1 and 2 of our 3 zone ride edges so that we could then mow the regeneration on a rotation with our tractor and chain swipe. We had calculated that we could  just about cover all the rides in the Northern portion of the wood (50 acres) in the 5 days we had the mulcher for.

Our 'back of a fag packet' calculation proved to be way out. The mulcher was so effective that the North Wood was completed in one and a half days, leaving us with three and a half days to do all of the other rides we had opened up. This was most excellent!

 

Steve and I had spent two days with a hired in large saw taking the biggest stumps down a bit as we thought this would speed up the subsequent mulching process.

 

 

This turned out in hindsight to be a complete waste of time. The Mulcher hardly even noticed passing through stumps like the one above. Even the colossal multi-stemmed Ash stools several feet in diameter only kept the mulcher head busy for a minute or two.

 

After 5 days of carefully supervised mulching we had covered several miles of ride, 5-7 meters down each side, and several miles of access track, with not a stump left in sight. The outermost zone (zone 3) was left un-mulched down each ride edge. We wanted this to develop into shrubby coppice growth to be cut every 10 years or so with chainsaws. Zone 3's were not going to be mown so stumps weren't a problem.

 

Below are some pictures of the mulcher in action. In the last picture you can clearly make out the brambly zone 3's left to carry on growing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This looks like a seriously heavy intervention, and it is. We are very confident however that these ride edges will green back up in no time and develop the lush, vibrant and varied habitat that we are after. Only time will tell if we have seriously over-reached with this one, but we did our homework and are anticipating spectacular results over the next two to three years.

 

A special shout out has to go to Justin Kingwell. He is the owner of the company and was our driver for the week.

There is no terrain where he is not prepared to take his very expensive machines. The concrete roadways didn't phase him a bit, nor did the potential prospect of the odd unexploded bomb! He mulches on regardless with a happy smile on his face. It was a joy having him around.

 

The regeneration of the vegetation on these ride edges is going to be monitored by our conservation guru Juliet. I'll keep you all posted on how they develop.

 

Next up, firewood. The revenue generator.

 

Wow that's a pretty serious bit of kit , those rides should look fantastic ☺️. I'm guessing there wasn't much in the way of wildflower on the old ride edges ?

 

How long ago was this done ?