An Idiot's guide to Ancient Woodland management

[Guest Gimlet]

Can you please tell that to natural England. I have use of a modest strip of overstood hazel coppice on a SSSI. They won't let me cut and regenerate because they think it should "mature" to become wood pasture (whatever that is) and coppicing would destroy dormouse habitat. 

 

I've tried telling them that neglected hazel will only live about 80 or 90 years whereas a regularly coppiced stool can live for 300 and more but they won't have it. They won't even let me layer stems to replace those stools that are already dying of old age.  

[the village idiot]

TOO MANY TREES, NOT ENOUGH SAWS.

 

My decision to tackle three compartments in the 50 acres of lapsed coppice that first winter was not just the result of amateurish over-enthusiasm. There was some sound reasoning behind it. Each of the three planned coppice compartments had a pond within them, although they were totally lost amongst the trees. I was keen to get started on the pond restoration and in order to make it viable getting a big excavator in to do the de-silting it made sense to have three sites to go at.

 

The three planned coupes were all in area 2 of the map below.

 

 

Area 2 still maintained a multi-stemmed coppice structure but had not been cut since before the second world war. It is mostly Ash over a scrubby hazel understorey with many gnarly Oaks dotted about. Areas such as this where coppicing has ceased for a prolonged period of time are categorised as 'overstood' or 'neglected' coppice.

 

The hazel had become large, bent and relatively unprofitable to both man and wildlife. The Ash stools, which previously would have been cut maybe every 20 years ago were each sprouting between 2 and 10 massive stems- some 2 foot or more in diameter. Left much longer these weighty stems become too much for the stool and they come crashing down, splitting the stool open in the process, often resulting in tree death.

 

I first set to work taking down the hazel understorey, making habitat piles from the tops and putting the stem wood aside for charcoal making. Clearing the understorey first is good practice as it makes room for when the larger stems are felled and provides a safer working environment (aka 'leg it' routes!)

 

The Ash stems were challenging at first as a lot of them were leaning which gives them a tendency to barber chair (too gruesome to go into- feel free to look it up). I found that the best way to decrease the frequency of these cheek clenching events was to use a dog tooth cut. Even more effective was when I started boring a 'letterbox' through the gob. Both of these techniques have the effect of reducing the amount of holding timber keeping the tree upright before you make the final felling cut. It takes a bit of practice. Too little holding timber and the tree goes over before you are ready, too much and the tree can violently split up it's stem whilst performing the back cut with potentially very concerning results for the forester.

 

I managed to get through two of the planned three compartments. I haven't got many good pictures of these areas at this time but the photo below shows one of the areas post felling with several of the Ash stems having gone for a dip.

 

 

I still wanted to do the third planned compartment that winter so had to call upon a proper forester for help. More on this in the next post.

 

My next task after having felled the Ash was to work out a way of getting it to the Southern portion of the Wood (area 3 on the map) where I was setting up my processing area. As you have seen in a previous post all I had at the time was my dinky tractor and trailer without crane, so I set about crosscutting all the stems down into 10 inch rings, splitting the big rings down into chunks with a maul, and chucking it all into stock fencing rings to begin seasoning whilst I waited for the ground to dry out enough for extraction.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the nicest straight large Ash stems were left in long lengths with a view to them being milled, in scant disregard of the fact that I had at the time no means to move them an inch, let alone the half mile down to the processing area!

 

[the village idiot]

40 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

Can you please tell that to natural England. I have use of a modest strip of overstood hazel coppice on a SSSI. They won't let me cut and regenerate because they think it should "mature" to become wood pasture (whatever that is) and coppicing would destroy dormouse habitat. 

 

I've tried telling them that neglected hazel will only live about 80 or 90 years whereas a regularly coppiced stool can live for 300 and more but they won't have it. They won't even let me layer stems to replace those stools that are already dying of old age.  

That sounds a bit strange. The one habitat type were are by no means short of in the UK is overstood hazel.

 

You really need a very large area for environmentally significant wood pasture (generally very widely spaced trees with grassland in between).

 

Coppicing Hazel promotes Dormice habitat, especially if you get bramble. My personal suspicion is that they are much more tolerant of that first intervention than we are led to believe.

 

One thing is for certain. If the area is left for the many decades needed to encourage wood pasture you can kiss the Dormice goodbye.

[Guest Gimlet]

35 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

That sounds a bit strange. The one habitat type were are by no means short of in the UK is overstood hazel.

 

You really need a very large area for environmentally significant wood pasture (generally very widely spaced trees with grassland in between).

 

Coppicing Hazel promotes Dormice habitat, especially if you get bramble. My personal suspicion is that they are much more tolerant of that first intervention than we are led to believe.

 

One thing is for certain. If the area is left for the many decades needed to encourage wood pasture you can kiss the Dormice goodbye.

Precisely my thinking. The area in question is a narrow strip of hazel coppice in the floor of a steep, partially wooded chalk grassland valley. Effectively the strip at the bottom is a drain for the whole valley so for most of the year it is damp and boggy. The hazel has clearly been coppiced in the past. There aren't as many stools on the ground as there would be with productive coppice because some have died and collapsed or been crowded out by rogue species leaving gaps, but it's dense enough, given how overstood it's become, to ensure an uninterrupted leaf canopy in summer. Consequently no grass grows. There are bluebells in spring but then nettles, docks and dog mercury take over - not exactly pasture.

 

There is thick bramble cover on the outer edge of the hazel strip, where the grassland meets the trees and NE have demanded that this is removed, their thinking being this will allow deer and livestock to wander under the canopy and graze the nettles, docks and dog mercury away and allow grass and wild flowers to become established - on what is in effect a sunless forest flower throughout the growing season. It's utter nonsense. The only way to encourage light-loving flower and grass species is to regularly coppice the hazel and let in the sunlight, but they won't have it. 

With their approach it's just going to turn into a dingy bog of moss-covered dead trees, emphatically not dormouse habitat. 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Gimlet

[the village idiot]

EVERYONE NEEDS A JOHN, OR PREFERABLY TWO.

 

During this first year of my time at the Wood it began to dawn on me that a ratio of one very green cutter to 200 acres of Woodland were not odds heavily stacked in my favour. I was barely scratching the surface and the sheer magnitude of the Woodland was going to gobble me up without even bothering to chew. Unless that is I could call in reinforcements.

 

It's at this point that I'll introduce you to two key players who have contributed a great deal early on and also to the ongoing management activities in the Wood.

 

John and Jake Fish, aka Big Fish and Little Fish, aka Treewood Harvesting.

 

and

 

John Shipp, aka John Shipp, aka J.S.Forestry.

 

 I have tried my very best to persuade them to join forces and give a glorious birth to Fish and Shipps Forestry Services but frustratingly they remain stubbornly independent.

 

These guys have had such a big impact that they deserve some dedicated posts of their own.

[the village idiot]

20 minutes ago, Gimlet said:

Precisely my thinking. The area in question is a narrow strip of hazel coppice in the floor of a steep, partially wooded chalk grassland valley. Effectively the strip at the bottom is a drain for the whole valley so for most of the year it is damp and boggy. The hazel has clearly been coppiced in the past. There aren't as many stools on the ground as there would be with productive coppice because some have died and collapsed or been crowded out by rogue species leaving gaps, but it's dense enough, given how overstood it's become, to ensure an uninterrupted leaf canopy in summer. Consequently no grass grows. There are bluebells in spring but then nettles, docks and dog mercury take over - not exactly pasture.

 

There is thick bramble cover on the outer edge of the hazel strip, where the grassland meets the trees and NE have demanded that this is removed, their thinking being this will allow deer and livestock to wander under the canopy and graze the nettles, docks and dog mercury away and allow grass and wild flowers to become established - on what is in effect a sunless forest flower throughout the growing season. It's utter nonsense. The only way to encourage light-loving flower and grass species is to regularly coppice the hazel and let in the sunlight, but they won't have it. 

With their approach it's just going to turn into a dingy bog of moss-covered dead trees, emphatically not dormouse habitat. 

Hmmm, that does sound more than a little bizarre.

 

Unfortunately I am not qualified enough to give a counter argument to take to Natural England.

 

Do you have a relationship with your local Forestry Commission Woodland Officer. Perhaps they could give you a second opinion that would carry some weight?

[the village idiot]

JOHN SHIPP.

 

I think I first met John (Arbtalk's Logan) at an 'improve your firewood profitability' course in 2014. The course was rubbish but John wasn't. We got on well and he was the first person I called on when my self imposed workload became too much.

 

John was then, and still is now, a forestry contractor operating in Essex and Suffolk. He also produces firewood, honing his production methods and machinery over the years.

 

Not one for the limelight, a few years ago poor old John got bullied into appearing in a short Forestry Commission video to talk about the grants available for forestry and firewood machinery which crop up from time to time.

 

He will thank me profusely for posting it up here.?

 

 

 

[the village idiot]

Hugely disappointed in the new Head and Shoulders For Beards.?

 

[nepia]

Streuth TVI, you have been one busy guy notwithstanding the assistance of Fish n Shipps.  Full respect to you - you're doing a great thing as I'm sure many here think.  We're not at all envious you know, just admiring. ?

[the village idiot]

5 minutes ago, nepia said:

Streuth TVI, you have been one busy guy notwithstanding the assistance of Fish n Shipps.  Full respect to you - you're doing a great thing as I'm sure many here think.  We're not at all envious you know, just admiring. ?

Thanks Nepia, that means a lot!

 

The trick is to find what you really enjoy and try to do that for as much as your life as possible, (stop sniggering in the back!)

It's a tired old adage but true that it really doesn't feel like work then.

 

We're still only in year one threadwise so plenty more goodies to come.