Maybe the UK should plant more....

[andy cobb]

On 03/06/2020 at 09:21, Stere said:

 

What wrong with non natives if they grow well and provide useful timber.

 

I'd like more sweet chesnuts coppice plantations but maybe climate isn't viable for them in north?

You would think with the poor longevity of treated fence posts that sweet chestnut would be booming. I see a few individual specimens here in north Yorkshire but no large plantations, maybe in the future with a warming climate?

[nepia]

6 hours ago, G13469 said:

It used to be a lovely view driving under it with its lights on. Dunno if they still work in the winter 

Yuletide bedecking does indeed still occur

 

 

[Jack.P]

Some Poplar I’ve seen is only on 7 yr rotation.sweet chestnut is a bit overlooked though .lucky to get 10 years out of any treated softwood fencing material

[openspaceman]

3 hours ago, andy cobb said:

You would think with the poor longevity of treated fence posts that sweet chestnut would be booming.

I always preferred sweet chestnut and my felling partner spent the rest of his time harvesting, cleaving and erecting chestnut fencing. Mind I must have cut far more softwood 5'6" stakes from softwood thinnings at 35p each than he ever made. I also wonder if the softwood got advantage from MAFF grants (essentially because of fraudulant claims for longevity). Anyway far easier to process softwood through a peeler pointer and into the pressure tank than to cleave and point chestnut. We as a society don't think things through, chestnut lasts about as long as the wire around here, softwood, poorly treated about half that time and leaves a residue of chromated copper arsenate long after its useful life, the organic copper stuff that replaced it doesn't last hardly at all.

[AHPP]

Na na na na na na na na nitens!

 

That's what we're mostly planting (euc. nitens). Along with a few other euc species in much smaller quantities, we'll have planted about 60k of them this spring.

 

They grow faster than anything else that grows in the UK, produces decent quality timber for chip, firewood and sawmilling and looks nice too. 

 

Should be able to get 200k planted next year, or at least that's the plan.

Does Nitens mill noteworthily better than other Eucalyptus? Everything I've read about Eucalyptus species is that they warp very badly.

 

[Stere]

Isn't it a gamble with frost?

 

Had two eucs  in garden yrs ago both got but by frost  one has coppiced other died. Trees were over 15yrs old still got them.

 

Was probable this exceptional cold spell

 

Winter of 2010–11 in Great Britain and Ireland - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

[AHPP]

It's classed as a general construction timber in Australia, but I think here wouldn't make anything more than c16 grade, which is the same as sitka. 
 
 

Do they grow quicker than Sitka in a plantation?

[The avantgardener]

The growth rate on these Eucalyptus is incredible, certainly here in the South East, don’t think they will be outperforming Sitka in the Highlands anytime soon though!

 I can see the benefit of planting them for firewood/biomass production for personal or large estates etc.
But for me, the downside is that there is little to no biodiversity/ecological benefit, they are a potential powder keg in prolonged dry weather, RE: Portugal’s internal inferno a couple of years back, Spain removing the vast amounts of Eucalyptus presently and replanting with a different genus.
Tilhill are currently doing trials in Wales with Eucalyptus.
So, big return, in quick time with minimal beat up/maintenance costs, all machine processed, the majority straight to biomass. right up Tilhill’s street.
Eucalyptus has its place, but as a large scale alternative to Sitka et al, I couldn’t think of anything worse.

Edited June 5, 2020 by The avantgardener

[The avantgardener]

24 minutes ago, Big J said:

3-4 times quicker

But how will they deal with high altitude, shallow soil,cold Winter and incessant rainfall of the Highlands compared to Sitka?

[coppicer]

5 hours ago, The avantgardener said:

But for me, the downside is that there is little to no biodiversity/ecological benefit, they are a potential powder keg in prolonged dry weather

Agreed. Mass planting, even of native trees, something of a gamble due to the law of unintended consequences. The Japanese did it after the second world war, because they had been short of resources during the conflict and were determined not to have that happen again. Also they thought they might not be able to import. So they planted sugi (cedar) plantations on an unprecedented scale, in the regions around Tokyo.

 

Of course, trade came roaring back within a decade or so, and they found that harvesting their own cedar - nice though it was - couldn't compete in economic terms with imports from developing countries. They also found that these vast cedar plantations generated clouds of pollen that basically triggered hay fever in a large percentage of the population who had hitherto been untroubled by it, because pollen levels had never been that high, historically speaking.

 

It was explained to me once that the allergic reaction to pollen is cumulative, like filling a cup with water. The person receives the stimulus (water is poured into the cup), but they don't react until it hits a certain critical level, which varies by individual. Once it hits that level, the cup can't take any more water and it overflows - and that's when you start getting hay fever. I lived in Japan for a long time, and after about 10 years, having been unaffected previously, I too started to get hay fever in the pollen season (Feb/Mar) like many Japanese. I read an interesting academic paper on it but can't find it now.

 

So yes, let's be careful with large-scale plantings. It's not as if the conifers here in the UK did our ecology much good after WWII...