An Idiot's guide to Ancient Woodland management

[the village idiot]

4 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Before helping yourself   walk the forest, chop wood. After 'enlightenment'   drop wood, run the forest.

There are not many more terror inducing sights than a big man in camo gear and covered face emerging quietly from the gloom of the evening trees brandishing a hefty loaded high power rifle. 

[Bolt]

3 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

There are not many more terror inducing sights than a big man in camo gear and covered face emerging quietly from the gloom of the evening trees brandishing a hefty loaded high power rifle. 

Fair point.

 

Put like that it does seem a bit less of a giggle.

 

 

 

[the village idiot]

RIDE EDGE MANAGEMENT.

 

If you go for a walk around a dark under-managed Woodland you are very likely to notice that there are relatively little obvious signs of life going about it's business. Step out to the edge, where the trees meet the surrounding fields and you will probably find a very different scenario. 

 

Along a Woodland edge you often get a gradation of different sorts of growth, from the tall Woodland trees through to shrubby growth, down to maybe brambles and herby plants and ultimately down to the grass of a field or headland. 

 

This happens naturally if the Woodland edges are not flailed regularly, and if left alone totally the Woodland would gradually swell in size in all directions, always maintaining that shrubby edge at the frontier. Rest assured I am not advocating that this should be allowed to happen to all Woodland. We need crops and houses too!

 

The point I am trying to make is that the outside edge of a dense Woodland is often it's most vibrant location in terms of biodiversity. Light is obviously the main player here. Light encourages plant growth, and a good mix of different plants brings a host of different invertebrates, reptiles, birds and mammals to feed and make homes.

 

The logic behind widening up the rides within an area of Woodland is not just to improve access, but also to ultimately mimic the conditions at the Woodland edge resulting in wonderfully vibrant corridors of biodiversity throughout the typically quiet interior.

 

At this Wood I opted for a three zone ride edge regime. Two zones is probably more common. The aim was to establish a 'rising' gradient of growth from the grassy main track in the middle (zone 1), through a herby layer (zone 2), to a shrubby coppice like region (zone 3), terminating in the mature trees at the very back of the ride edge.

 

This diagram should give you an idea of the desired structure:

 

The Woodland is fairly large so I decided to go big with the ride edges in order to create as much of these habitats as possible whilst being mindful not to turn the Wood into just a series of rides with thin strips of trees in between! Most people cut back about 4 or 5 mtrs from the central track each side. I opted for 15mtrs.?

 

As mentioned in a previous post there are over 10km of rides within the Wood. All had large trees growing right up to the edge of Zone 1, so it was destined to be a massive project.

 

In the next post I'll try to show you with pictures how we are getting on with this task.

[Stere]

So about 74acres of rides? ?

 

if 10km of 30m wide rides.....

 

 

 

 

[the village idiot]

4 minutes ago, Stere said:

So about 74acres of rides? ?

 

if 10km of 30m wide rides.....

 

 

 

 

Yes! I did some of those sums and got rather alarmed when we transitioned to the current system of grant payments (Countryside Stewardship). I'll explain more about this later.

 

I opted to settle for just under 5km of three zone rides, with the remaining half becoming narrower 2 zone or narrower still access tracks.

 

Even with this scenario, it has been ride widening work that has used up the majority of our cutting time for the past 4 years.

[Stere]

A suppose zone 3 is also a kind of  linear coppice coupe as much as a ride.

 

 

[the village idiot]

2 minutes ago, Stere said:

A suppose zone 3 is also a kind of  linear coppice coupe as much as a ride.

 

 

Absolutely. That's a good was to think of it.

 

Zone 3 will need to be cut on a rotation (just like a coppice coup). Generally it will be somewhere between a 5 and 20 year rotation. Something like a 7 year rotation would give us a good return of coppice products whilst still providing a habitat whilst it is growing.

[the village idiot]

WIDE RIDENING. PHASE 1

 

The first two words above are what usually fall out of my mouth automatically when I try to say Ride Widening. It's a bit of a tongue twister that I still haven't managed to crack. It's much easier to type than say out loud!

 

The ride widening efforts actually started pretty early on, after taking the nurse conifers out of the Oaks in my first autumn.

 

I started to cut what's referred to as scallops, basically 30mtr or so long semi circles along the track edges, alternating sides every 30mtrs. This proved to be a bit of a ball ache as when returning a year later to do the opposite sides I was causing significant damage to the new regrowth, my previous year's brash piles always got in the way and I was fairly confident that the scallops were going to be problematic when it came to the ride edge mowing regime. All of this, combined with the fact that scalloping was going to greatly limit the lines of sight for the crucial Deer stalking efforts, I opted for a different approach.

 

I decided (for better or worse) to take all the ride edges (15mtrs each side for the 3 zone rides) back to ground level all in one hit, with the branches and tops (brash) all tucked out of the way in a line at the back. I figured that in my particular circumstances this would be a much more efficient way to proceed. I could initially get the ride edges back to 'ground zero' and then give them some curvy form with the subsequent mowing regimes.

 

Some Woodland managers chip or burn their brash. I consider this a bit of a shame as the brash piles provide excellent cover and habitat for a wealth of Woodland critters. The UK Forestry Standards document advises that around 20% of Woodland management arisings should be left as deadwood habitat. You would be hard pressed to meet this standard, and take enough trees off site to be financially viable, if you are not leaving your brash wood in place.

 

Cutting back the ride edges to the extent that I wanted was a mammoth undertaking. As Stere has rightly pointed out we are talking about several tens of acres of coppicing. In the first three years when I was on my own I managed to bribe a local group called Orchard Barn to come out and volunteer in return for timber materials for their various projects. Once a month a motley crew of mostly retired gentlemen would come and help with the brash dragging and log stacking. This was a big help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[the village idiot]

You've probably been seeing all these photos with piles of wood everywhere and wondering what happens to it all.

 

Turning this resource into saleable products is a very large and important part of the project.

 

There will be posts coming up dedicated to firewood production, charcoal, milling etc. I promise to get to them soon!

[the village idiot]

Also, soon to be unveiled, a young man with a huge amount more up his sleeve than just an Owl!