Coppicing hazel.

[Dan Maynard]

I've had to do selective cutting like that on a stand of hazel coppice. It's on a SSSI site and NE won't let me coppice the stools to the ground because it will "destroy dormouse habitat" (yeah, I know. Don't get me started). They don't seem tp understand that I wouldn't cut the whole area in one go, but work coups on a seven year cycle. But they won't have it. The hazel is extremely overstood. Probably hasn't been properly worked for 50 years. Many of the stools are dying of old age. So I've been going round cherry-picking suitable stems for hedgelaying stakes and binders, leaving all the young growth and then taking out all dead wood and about 30% of the oldest stems. That is all they'll let me get away with.
 
It's not a commercially viable way to coppice but as the material is for my own use not resale, provided I can harvest at least £150 worth of material for a day's work it's worth doing and hopefully it will at least keep the stools alive until wiser counsels prevail at Natural England.
 
Whether the amount of regrowth I'm promoting is sufficient to regenerate the stool only time will tell. I believe some are beyond the point of no return and should have been cut years ago if the area hadn't been pickled in aspic by NE. I've noticed that some of the very large stems which were alive when I trimmed them out have not produced any new growth around the cut which doesn't bode well. And this lack of growth tends to be on those very old stools are more or less fused into one huge mass at ground level so I think it's questionable whether they would now survive full regen cutting. It's an object lesson in the cost of neglecting hazel coppice and it's scandalous that a quango like NE with the power to dictate to landowners are so ignorant of the correct management of this habitat.

That sounds like NE make it up by region. The wood I volunteer in is also SSSI, and NE have had to approve the management plans which include a patchwork of rideside coppicing that is labelled by year until 2029.

We also have dormice, which were apparently reintroduced about 25 years ago. And we definitely whack the hazel stools right back.

[Guest Gimlet]

We have a strip of coppice in the floor of a steep valley extending to about 1 hectare. It has clearly been coppiced in the past but has been neglected for many years. NE are calling this "wood pasture". Their idea is the brambles on the periphery should be controlled and then livestock and wildlife will get in to graze under the hazel and the floor will revert to grass and wild flowers, like an orchard. It's mental. 

Quite apart from the fact it has never been that sort of habitat and so they are trying to establish something that is unnatural, as you'd expect from a narrow floor at the bottom of a steep valley, the hazel strip acts as a drain and is very damp for most of the year. About the only thing that grows in there are a bluebells, dog mercury, nettles and docks. It is never going to revert to grass even if the hazel was all pulled out. 

 

They won't even let us clear up fallen trees because they "provide an escape route for dormice away from predators". Honestly, I kid you not. 

I pointed out that if left unmaintained, eventually the coppiced stools will die and then the whole strip will revert to scrub which will be little use to dormice, and they said that's fine because that is the natural course of events. So one minute they're telling us dormouse habitat is a priority which we must protect and that we can't coppice because that will deplete that habitat (which is nonsense), and the next they're ordering us to stand back and allow dormouse habitat to revert to scrub because that's the natural cycle and we mustn't interfere. It's nonsensical.

 

Hopefully the departure of the previous field officer will see some common sense return. Someone much higher up the NE food chain has inspected the conservation work we've been doing in the rest of the valley to reinstate the chalk grassland and is extremely pleased with the progress. We are hoping he will have better knowledge of the benefits of coppicing and amend the protocol.   

[Dan Maynard]

We have a strip of coppice in the floor of a steep valley extending to about 1 hectare. It has clearly been coppiced in the past but has been neglected for many years. NE are calling this "wood pasture". Their idea is the brambles on the periphery should be controlled and then livestock and wildlife will get in to graze under the hazel and the floor will revert to grass and wild flowers, like an orchard. It's mental. 
Quite apart from the fact it has never been that sort of habitat and so they are trying to establish something that is unnatural, as you'd expect from a narrow floor at the bottom of a steep valley, the hazel strip acts as a drain and is very damp for most of the year. About the only thing that grows in there are a bluebells, dog mercury, nettles and docks. It is never going to revert to grass even if the hazel was all pulled out. 
 
They won't even let us clear up fallen trees because they "provide an escape route for dormice away from predators". Honestly, I kid you not. 
I pointed out that if left unmaintained, eventually the coppiced stools will die and then the whole strip will revert to scrub which will be little use to dormice, and they said that's fine because that is the natural course of events. So one minute they're telling us dormouse habitat is a priority which we must protect and that we can't coppice because that will deplete that habitat (which is nonsense), and the next they're ordering us to stand back and allow dormouse habitat to revert to scrub because that's the natural cycle and we mustn't interfere. It's nonsensical.
 
Hopefully the departure of the previous field officer will see some common sense return. Someone much higher up the NE food chain has inspected the conservation work we've been doing in the rest of the valley to reinstate the chalk grassland and is extremely pleased with the progress. We are hoping he will have better knowledge of the benefits of coppicing and amend the protocol.   

That does sound particularly bonkers.

[coppice cutter]

Could I just stress again, this is a new planting, and has never been touched since planting.

 

As a result I have bushes with stems up to two inches literally side by side with pencil thickness stems. The regrowth from the cut stumps will probably soon catch up with the thin poles left possibly meaning it could all be cut together next time.

 

As I said before being mindful of Alec's advice, rather than take out the thickest, I will now probably just leave the thinnest, which isn't actually the same thing. Or any of the plots where the hazel is side by side with other hazel I will indeed cut the whole thing to leave a proper clearing.

 

As an aside, and purely out of interest, when properly seasoned where would hazel sit as a firewood and what would it be comparable to?

Edited March 23, 2021 by coppice cutter

[Stubby]

1 hour ago, coppice cutter said:

 

 

As an aside, and purely out of interest, when properly seasoned where would hazel sit as a firewood and what would it be comparable to?

I don't get much but I like Hazel as a fire wood . Obviousely it is usually of a diameter that wont need splitting . You could compair it to galvanised buckets or custard if you want but probably most good burning wood is were its at .🙂

[coppice cutter]

Don't get me wrong, I am firmly of the "any well seasoned wood is good burning wood" camp.

 

But there are differences.

 

Burn well-seasoned Leylandii all night and you'll be nice and toasty warm. But throw on a couple of chunks of hawthorn and you're put out of the room.

 

So that's why the question was purely out of interest as I know it'll do a good job whatever.

[Will C]

I would put hazel on par with beech or apple, it’s well up there for heat output. Cracking firewood, I will save hazel smaller than most woods, it’s normally relatively straight and easy to process which is a bonus 

[gary112]

15 minutes ago, Will C said:

I would put hazel on par with beech or apple, it’s well up there for heat output. Cracking firewood, I will save hazel smaller than most woods, it’s normally relatively straight and easy to process which is a bonus 

Totally agree, great firewood,burn loads of it

[coppice cutter]

Thanks gents, happy days!

Edited March 24, 2021 by coppice cutter