Coppicing an old birch grove?

[MontanaSam]

Hi Everybody...first time poster here!

I live on a fairly dry clay plateau above a river valley in NWest Montana, USA..our property is forested, and there is a beautiful grove of old, multi-stemmed paper birch, each tree having 3-5 stems of 10"-20"+ DBH. They have large, sprawling canopies providing plenty of shade and habitat...we love them.

I've noticed over the years here that the tops have been dying back. I've seen this a lot in the industry and have cut plenty of tops out myself for homeowners...everything seems to be blamed...lack of water, ash-borer beetles, and most recently I was told by a forester that birch trees specifically lack the strength to pump water very high, so the tops are deprived of water and tend to die on older trees...who knows?

So not knowing what the cause is, and not wanting to exacerbate the problem, I've let them be. But I've been reading a lot about coppicing lately and am curious if this could revive the old trees...

My primary question is this: undoubtedly coppicing works on birch species of a young-middle age...but would it work on a much older tree? Some have proposed that the epicormic buds on old trees can no longer be revived or activated, and yet I've cut down plenty of huge, old, Ash, elm, willow, and maples that have sprouted insanely vigorously the next spring...reaching 12' high or more. But I can't say I've seen it happen on old birch....

If I could coppice all these trees and have a beautiful grove of young multi-stemmed, 30' trees in a few years, I'd do it right now...

Just looking for some observations or advice. Thank you 

[Treeation]

I think Betula pendula (our silver birch in uk) has a fairly poor response to coppicing when they get large and old and bear in mind its a pioneer species which naturally is short lived (approx 75 life span). Your birch sound like there might be in natural decline already as you say the tops are dying back so there energy levels may be lower than found in younger specimens

 

Id consider 

1. Looking for a clues to the likeliness of them reshooting from ground - i.e is there any basal shoots/epicormic growth present on any of the trees - if there is - this gives a clue that theres more chance of a good vegetative response.

2. Possibly doing a tester cut with one of them - cut one close to ground but leave stubs to promote the amount of potential dormant buds left to sprout.

3. Try and assess the overall health of each tree and chose a test piece thats in good health, but also make sure there is enough light hitting the stump as birch are light demanders and the remaining canopy in the surrounding trees needs to be considered as some coppice stools wont regenerate in dense shade

4. To improve growth response, avoid cutting following a drought year so as not to cause anymore drought stress.

5. Im not sure if you have pressure from browsing animals where you are but if you do its essential you protect the coppice stool in the first few years after cutting or the delectable regrowth will be munched on a yearly basis by opportunists. We have a large problem in the UK with high popultaions of deer and rabbits so we quite often have to manage this to be succesful with coppice regeneration.

 

Other option to consider would be to consider felling and replanting thus starting out again.

 

Would be cool to see some pictures of the grove!

 

 

 

 

 

[Dan Maynard]

I was going to agree, what I've heard about silver birch is poor regeneration from coppice but prolific seed production so maybe the answer is to fell them in small blocks over several years. A range of ages in the regrowth is probably no bad thing.