Maybe the UK should plant more....

[Mr. Ed]

As to being a climate change tree, one of the reasons eucalypts are abhorred in some places is because they're so good at getting all the moisture available for themselves - the water-table falls and starves other plants of water.

[Sutton]

1 hour ago, Mr. Ed said:

As to being a climate change tree, one of the reasons eucalypts are abhorred in some places is because they're so good at getting all the moisture available for themselves - the water-table falls and starves other plants of water.

Seen your woodland pics from TVi's thread and appreciate your questioning eucalypts. ?

We could add the fear of wild fires like in 1976 or the recent bush fires in Oz given the combustible nature of their oil, leaf and bark litter (yes, they are messy), and that startling exotic foliage (they are quite something to see in a storm in "full sail").

I can't speak for Eire, but the UK has many competing interests objecting to the varied options for renewable power generation e.g. The Seven Estuary tidal project has been shelved.

As you know, forestry has to project years ahead to best reckon what the markets will need because trees are relatively slow growing. So, for fuel that means accounting for why Germany recently opened a coal-fired power station, the panic over peak oil, sourcing uranium from politically unstable countries (China in the Africa), etc. The list goes on. Ultimately, its about spreading risk and if landowners in Devon can put their subsidies on hold for it (if they do or if indeed subsidies still exist after this C-19 crisis) then, I for one will be reassured that someone is thinking ahead positively.

 

As BigJ said, horses for courses. Eucalypts are a crop. Better than the swathes of solar cells popping up in farmer's fields all over the place. IMO. Yes, our ancient woodlands have heritage status for good reason. But wood has utility too and exotics might have their place (just a different place that's all)

Start your own thread about your woodland, Arbtalk has a lot of knowledgeable people and who doesn't like to see pictures of trees?

[Mr. Ed]

1 minute ago, Sutton said:

Seen your woodland pics from TVi's thread and appreciate your questioning eucalypts. ?

We could add the fear of wild fires like in 1976 or the recent bush fires in Oz given the combustible nature of their oil, leaf and bark litter (yes, they are messy), and that startling exotic foliage (they are quite something to see in a storm in "full sail").

I can't speak for Eire, but the UK has many competing interests objecting to the varied options for renewable power generation e.g. The Seven Estuary tidal project has been shelved.

As you know, forestry has to project years ahead to best reckon what the markets will need because trees are relatively slow growing. So, for fuel that means accounting for why Germany recently opened a coal-fired power station, the panic over peak oil, sourcing uranium from politically unstable countries (China in the Africa), etc. The list goes on. Ultimately, its about spreading risk and if landowners in Devon can put their subsidies on hold for it (if they do or if indeed subsidies still exist after this C-19 crisis) then, I for one will be reassured that someone is thinking ahead positively.

 

As BigJ said, horses for courses. Eucalypts are a crop. Better than the swathes of solar cells popping up in farmer's fields all over the place. IMO. Yes, our ancient woodlands have heritage status for good reason. But wood has utility too and exotics might have their place (just a different place that's all)

Start your own thread about your woodland, Arbtalk has a lot of knowledgeable people and who doesn't like to see pictures of trees?

Thanks Sutton! Yes, I'd love to write up the woods here, but am stressed out doing paying work in the daytime, tap-tap-tapping in a slightly abstract but sporadically productive fashion, and occasionally getting to go out in the woods themselves! Will try and do something for you all - it's getting more interesting the more I learn about it. It seems to be a very diverse little area. 

This is an interesting question for me specifically, since we have 3 hectares or so of nine year old ashes: has the virus got to Kerry yet? Yup. So, we may well have a bit of blank canvas to work from in the next couple of years. 

In a briliant bit of self-sabotage when we moved here, herself and I were disagreeing about how active our management of the new woods would be. "Man Does; Woman Is" as the poet says. I made a brilliant call and said "let's take two fields (I can't get used to calling them compartments yet). I'll manage mine 'properly' and you can let yours go to rack and ruin with neglect." 

It was the middle of winter; I barely know which end of a tree is which and, of course, chose the nearly 100% ash plantation, while she's got a lovely oak and birch baby-forest in blooming health while mine has bare heads sticking up everywhere!

[openspaceman]

On 09/06/2020 at 08:29, Sutton said:

The nitens we put in had 1+cm annual growth rings. Scottish/Scandinavian timber is closer ringed so stronger.

So, from our tiny experience, nitens might not be structurally dependable.

Are you comparing the growth rings of eucalyptus with Scottish/Scandinavian eucalyptus or softwoods?

 

The thing is oak and ash tend to be better quality (higher strength and elasticity) when fast grown whereas softwoods tend to be better with ring counts of 14 ish to the inch.

 

What evidence is there that nitens will be a poor structural timber?

 

 

[Sutton]

24 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Are you comparing the growth rings of eucalyptus with Scottish/Scandinavian eucalyptus or softwoods?

 

The thing is oak and ash tend to be better quality (higher strength and elasticity) when fast grown whereas softwoods tend to be better with ring counts of 14 ish to the inch.

 

What evidence is there that nitens will be a poor structural timber?

Evidence? Only Hearsay.

Interesting what you say about value of oak/ash and speed of growth.

Was merely supposing eucalypts grown in southern UK would have poorer qualities than northern softwood i.e. the internal stresses/lateral tensions that exist in nitens because of the speed it grows, would mean it would not have the linear fibre-strength of native softwood in building, load supporting etc.

A forester I worked for, once told me that southern UK softwoods grow too quick for structural quality. I was extending that to the growth rings seen in nitens. Things may have changed. Nitens has been hybridised (genetically-modified non-Monsanto style).

 

From memory, Mountain Ash Eucs have good timber properties but wont grow in the UK.

Nitens can be used for disposables or for decorations like indoor furniture.

 

Would imagine the sticky sap from softwoods would still mean they'd still be used in chipboard. So Eucs may have limited timber application. @BigJ can tell us

 

Can't point to any evidence really. But a quick google produces youtubes of Eucs being used for pallets and Flexural performance of cross-laminated timber rates Euc globulus performing better than nitens

 

 

 

[djbobbins]

I was involved in a previous life in the E.ON biomass plant at Lockerbie. That had short rotation coppice planned when the project was built, as I recall, but it just wasn’t viable - it would have taken thousands of acres to fuel a 44MW power station.

Agree about growing nitens and leylandii in the UK though - if I had some land I would be planting a bit of both, as part of a mixed selection, to get some earlier yielding stuff for firewood.

[The avantgardener]

There is a stand if Leylandii that I believe was planted in the forties quite close to where I live, it needed a sheltered spot as it is prone to blowing over. The lower branches have been lifted on the edge trees and is gun barrel straight and clean.

I will post some photos the next time I am over there.

[Khriss]

We import most if not all of our structural softwood timber - sadly it grows better in Poland Norway etc and is harvested more profitably. Great news on Jons project, i hope it achieves but often these schemes are a well meaning tax loss in the end. Glad we lead in innovation and ecology in UK but it always seems small scale compaired elsewhere. K

[Gary Prentice]

On 08/06/2020 at 23:04, Phloem said:

In a nutshell - wildlife and "sense of place". The species native to this country are the species which support birds, insects & various mammals because they have coexisted on this island for thousands of years (and in neighbouring Europe), and all these organisms have evolved together to coexist and benefit each other.

 

A Sitka plantation does provide some habitat for a few creatures, but it's many orders of magnitude less than an oak woodland for example.

 

When I started studying forestry I wondered why we have such boring tree species everywhere and why should we bother with natives, like why not put a shitload of giant sequoias and coastal redwoods everywhere instead of beech, oak, ash, etc. But as times gone by I actually think the native trees we find here, especially when they're allowed to grow old and magnificent, they are what make this small island so pleasant. There's something about them which just fits in perfectly, and because we've ****************ed up most of our ancient woodland, barely any of us can appreciate how amazing the trees which naturally grow here really are.

 

 

 

The species native to this country are the species which support birds, insects & various mammals because they have coexisted on this island for thousands of years (and in neighbouring Europe), and all these organisms have evolved together to coexist and benefit each other.

 

I follow your reasoning but the point that I am trying to make is that that little thing called evolution occurs. Where do you draw the line? Only take into account the animals, birds and insects that are native to this country or what. Everything adapts (or dies). It seems illogical, to me, to pedantically cast in stone that only 'native' species should be planted. Something that the FC and forest owners appear to totally ignore with the glaring absence of plantations of Scots pine and juniper.

 

My post was aimed towards urban/peri-urban planting and wasn't intended to address woodlands/semi-ancient woodland. I'd never advocate introducing ormentals into established woods, as we still have a number of native species available that don't have any serious pathogenic threats on the horizon. (If you exclude ALB)

 

My argument is that we have to except change, it's part of the evolutionary process. We must recognise that we are rapidly creating change to the world that we exist in. A decade or more ago, I read a paper discussing climate change affects on the natural range of beech trees. The woodland trust identifies common beech as a native, other sources state that it was introduced in Neolithic times. (Interesting map below). If you believe that climate change is real, if you are planning for the future then beech would probably be a poor choice in Northern climes. 

 

If we slavishly continue, in the urban environment, to stick to native species we're setting ourselves up for failure. Maybe not in the next decade or even the next fifty years, but we are. I do a lot of work with TPO applications as well as BS5837 surveys and I despair. Local authorities push for native replacements that have known serious threats to their longevity and Landscape architects generally limit large species to one or two species. Just great when something like ADD suddenly appears and wipes out every large tree species on the development/road/whatever. And yet we don't seem to take our experiences onboard and learn from them.

 

There's something about them which just fits in perfectly, and because we've ****************ed up most of our ancient woodland, barely any of us can appreciate how amazing the trees which naturally grow here really are.

I'm in total agreement here. My ecological knowledge increased so much more attending veteran tree events after I stopped climbing and started to study. It's a shame that our environmental ministers are so poorly educated and/or informed. 

 

As an interesting aside and in preparation for writing this I did a little research. The Violet Click Beetle is only known at three sites within the UK, veteran oak trees providing the habitat. To maintain a sustinable niche habitat (and a conundrum) but do you replant only with one of our two native oaks (low species diversity) or do you include Turkey oak? Q cerris is a known habitat for the beetle in Hungary.

 

Q cerris is a known habitat for the beetle in Hungary. Or another option is to  improve the overall diversity of the site to include Acers (maybe stick to native A campestre) ash ( no can't do them anymore) and native Tilia species. Do you choose shorter lived species that may become veterans within a shorter period of time or quick growing species that attain a large size and may be veteranised at a younger age?  These are the sort of questions that keep me awake at night 

 

 

Santamour.pdf

[Khriss]

@Gary Prentise. 

 

A) you should be burnt as a witch fr such heresy  (  and ' no one expected the Spanish Inquisition fella!) 

 

B) niche species are only' there ' when they are ' found' which is not the same as being there all along an not being noticed. 

 

This is a small and diverse island with mainland contact, i would never have a problem with 'creating a habitat' to further a species in UK if it assisted Ecological Diversity.  Our problem is Climate Change which could throw all bets off  ? K

Edited June 10, 2020 by Khriss
.... No... Its yr itchy bum keeps you awake at nights ? )