What mulch to use on newly planted whips?

[organic guy]

Recently read The woodchip Handbook as I am using woodchip to make compost to field spread.

Summer cut chip and leaf is fine to spread on fields immediately as the leaf provides the N to break down the chip.

Ideally for woody material it is mixed with dung or similar before composting.

In trials using it around trees the benefits were enormous! Composted chip was more effective but any chip is better than none.

Just to add I've been planting pot grown Royal oaks this afternoon and putting woodchip round them.

Edited November 28, 2022 by organic guy

[scbk]

If the ground doesn't have any trees on it already, then I think decomposed woodchip is better (when planting trees) as you're getting the mycorrhizal fungi from the rotting wood, which should help the new trees.

[Mick Dempsey]

18 minutes ago, scbk said:

If the ground doesn't have any trees on it already, then I think decomposed woodchip is better (when planting trees) as you're getting the mycorrhizal fungi from the rotting wood, which should help the new trees.

You reckon?

Doesn't mycorrhizal fungus occur round the roots?

What makes you think it lives in the rotting wood?
 

Happy to be corrected btw.

[scbk]

I don't know, it's above my paygrade, but I think open ground (grass) is lacking in the fungi that a woodland would have, so you add rotting wood and it finds it's way to the roots! From what I've seen, trees planted near existing trees do better than ones in an area of grass, and that's with keeping the weeds down.

 

 

You can buy packets of mycorrhizal fungi, whether or not it's actually still live in there?!

[nepia]

16 hours ago, organic guy said:

Recently read The woodchip Handbook as I am using woodchip to make compost to field spread.

Summer cut chip and leaf is fine to spread on fields immediately as the leaf provides the N to break down the chip.

Ideally for woody material it is mixed with dung or similar before composting.

In trials using it around trees the benefits were enormous! Composted chip was more effective but any chip is better than none.

Just to add I've been planting pot grown Royal oaks this afternoon and putting woodchip round them.

You may have read this too

 

https://www.organicresearchcentre.com/news-events/ramial-woodchip-production-and-use-on-farm/

[organic guy]

Thanks for that, I have not read them directly but I think much of the info is quoted in the book.

[nepia]

Well the book's just gone on my Christmas list!

[Woodworks]

So the whips are in and mulched.

 

Some have got fresh chip, some well rotted chip and the 4 closest have got wool with rotted chip on top to stop it blowing away

 

I will try to remember to come back to this in the future to see if it makes any difference 

[Doug Tait]

Gonna need a bigger mole trap!

[scbk]

7 hours ago, Woodworks said:

So the whips are in and mulched.

 

Some have got fresh chip, some well rotted chip and the 4 closest have got wool with rotted chip on top to stop it blowing away

 

I will try to remember to come back to this in the future to see if it makes any difference 

 

Was meaning to say, yes please do take photos, and come back to this thread in future years to show the change to the landscape as they come on