Thinning oak stand

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

Apparently not . I don't know why but they cause very little damage . 

I have no experience of reds, only ever seen them in the lake district, but the bark stripping by greys is specific to  the frustrations of displaced males which cannot establish a territory, so I doubt reds will do the devastating sort of damage greys do.

 

When I started planting in the early 70s, mostly softwoods,  the spacing had just increased from 5' x 5' to 6' in the rows and 8' between rows, ostensibly to allow tractor access and reduce planting costs but I expect there was a change in grant rules too. Spiral guards existed but not tubes and conifers were fenced rather than individually protected.

[Stere]

Free Growth of Oak silviculture event at Crumblands Plantation — Woodland Heritage

WWW.WOODLANDHERITAGE.ORG

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Free Growth of Oak - a sell-out Woodland Heritage event, which included a field visit to the Forest Research long-term...

 

Anyone being here would be interesting to have more details of there management?

 

13400 tree per hectare  really dense is that corrrect?

 

EDIT

 

 

France do a 240 yr cycle another method is  promoting  a new 100yrs cycle

 

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjalOrImrX8AhUITsAKHXiGBZ4QFnoECBMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournal.societyofirishforesters.ie%2Findex.php%2Fforestry%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F10853%2F9907&usg=AOvVaw1E5Dm0sAwI-SouUDv6deOx

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Stere

[AHPP]

23 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I have no experience of reds, only ever seen them in the lake district, but the bark stripping by greys is specific to  the frustrations of displaced males which cannot establish a territory, so I doubt reds will do the devastating sort of damage greys do.

 

That doesn’t follow. If the conservation press is to be believed, just about all the reds are facing those frustrations of not being able to establish territory.

[Stere]

Reds ate my hornbeams  several ft off each tree.

 

 

Non ring barked  but a dozen look like this.

 

Suprisingly it seems to have had little effect on the trees so far with regards to growth.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Stere

[organic guy]

1 hour ago, Stere said:

Free Growth of Oak silviculture event at Crumblands Plantation — Woodland Heritage

WWW.WOODLANDHERITAGE.ORG

---

Free Growth of Oak - a sell-out Woodland Heritage event, which included a field visit to the Forest Research long-term...

 

Anyone being here would be interesting to have more details of there management?

 

13400 tree per hectare  really dense is that corrrect?

 

EDIT

 

 

France do a 240 yr cycle another method is  promoting  a new 100yrs cycle

 

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjalOrImrX8AhUITsAKHXiGBZ4QFnoECBMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournal.societyofirishforesters.ie%2Findex.php%2Fforestry%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F10853%2F9907&usg=AOvVaw1E5Dm0sAwI-SouUDv6deOx

 

 

Really interesting link, suggests I should crack on and thin to my "winners" fairly soon.

Will tryt to get photos if it stops raining.

[Spruce Pirate]

9 hours ago, Stere said:

 

13400 tree per hectare  really dense is that corrrect?

 

 

Yes,  approximately 3' spacing as I was saying earlier.

 

 

 

 

12 hours ago, Big J said:

 

That as the case may be, such tight planting was also done when labour and materials were cheap. At £3.50 a tree, supplied, planted and tubed, tight spacing is economically unviable. 

 

 

That's a fair point Jon, BUT, remember we're dealing with a very long term product here.  History suggests that good quality hardwood such as oak will always sell, and always fetch a good price.  Good quality, not average, not poor, properly grown oaks of good quality.  Such being the case there should always be a decent return on the investment in the future.  Remember the planting costs are only one of the costs of growing quality hardwood.  Formative pruning around year 3 -5 with regular pruning and high pruning up to thinnings stage all eat up the cash.  Also remember that at high density nobody's tubing and staking, fencing becomes the only feasible option at these densities - if you take a square hectare and plant it at 1100/ha each tree is paying for 36cm of fencing, at 13400/ha each tree is only paying for less than 3cm of fencing, a significant economy of scale. 

 

It would have been correspondingly cheaper to plant at 3m spacing in the 1930's compared to planting at 3' spacing, just the same as it is now.  The main difference seems to be that between the wars and immediately post war people valued timber production as it was a very necessary resource.  We seem to have lost sight of the fact that unless we plant trees we won't have any timber, and if we continue to plant at ridiculously low densities all we'll end up with is a firewood crop.  I'd imagine your days of sawmilling would give a fair insight into different planting regimes and their relative impacts on timber quality?

 

Out of curiosity, what's the planting / restocking like in Sweden?  I don't know much about it, but from what I've seen in pictures and videos I'd guess a fairly high density?

[Big J]

1 hour ago, Spruce Pirate said:

 

Yes,  approximately 3' spacing as I was saying earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

That's a fair point Jon, BUT, remember we're dealing with a very long term product here.  History suggests that good quality hardwood such as oak will always sell, and always fetch a good price.  Good quality, not average, not poor, properly grown oaks of good quality.  Such being the case there should always be a decent return on the investment in the future.  Remember the planting costs are only one of the costs of growing quality hardwood.  Formative pruning around year 3 -5 with regular pruning and high pruning up to thinnings stage all eat up the cash.  Also remember that at high density nobody's tubing and staking, fencing becomes the only feasible option at these densities - if you take a square hectare and plant it at 1100/ha each tree is paying for 36cm of fencing, at 13400/ha each tree is only paying for less than 3cm of fencing, a significant economy of scale. 

 

It would have been correspondingly cheaper to plant at 3m spacing in the 1930's compared to planting at 3' spacing, just the same as it is now.  The main difference seems to be that between the wars and immediately post war people valued timber production as it was a very necessary resource.  We seem to have lost sight of the fact that unless we plant trees we won't have any timber, and if we continue to plant at ridiculously low densities all we'll end up with is a firewood crop.  I'd imagine your days of sawmilling would give a fair insight into different planting regimes and their relative impacts on timber quality?

 

Out of curiosity, what's the planting / restocking like in Sweden?  I don't know much about it, but from what I've seen in pictures and videos I'd guess a fairly high density?

 

There is a lot of replanting here, with quite a regimented and strict process for restocking. As best I can tell (and I haven't looked into it in depth, as it doesn't come into my work) the clearfell is completed, a few months pass and the brash is fully extracted. Then the ground is prepped (ripped, mounded, that sort of thing), sometimes enriched and then replanted. 95% of planting here is pine or spruce. 

They inevitably have issues with invasive birch growth, which is repeatedly cleared using clearing saws. Usually at least twice before the first thinning, and then again just ahead of the first thinning. Sometimes a birch crop is preferred, but not often. 

 

There are probably (by area) more mixed deciduous hardwood blocks here than in the UK, but as a percentage of the overall forest makeup, it's only very small. 

[devon TWiG]

Are there grey squirrels in Sweden and the rest of Europe ?    ....also nurse / sacrificial crops can help with growing more high value hardwoods ..eg Sycamore , theory is the Greys attack them in preference to Oak ..

[Macpherson]

7 hours ago, Spruce Pirate said:

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that unless we plant trees we won't have any timber, and if we continue to plant at ridiculously low densities all we'll end up with is a firewood crop.

 

Aye, I believe that each of Henry 8's fleet needed around 10 ha or 1,000 trees of  'managed' for hundreds of years Oak woodland, leading on to Nelson's ships needing more than 4 times that per boat.

 

I did read that the stunted rotting unmanaged oak woodlands around the Loch Lomond area were planted just after Henry's and pre Nelson's era with a nod to the future of shipbuilding... and then came the industrial rev, and people forgot to care.

 

To put it in perspective, had the above mentioned wood been managed properly they would still have 2 or 3 hundred years to go before harvesting... changed days eh !

 

It kind of points to the completely different mindset of past times where folk didn't just rip out nature without any foresight but had worked with it for millennia.... thinking about this while I type I guess that the stripping out of nearly all of the mature ancient Oak woodlands to build Men o' war must have been the biggest change to this country since the ice melted, and once the resource was used up it was essentially gone for ever,  cheers.

 

 

[Peasgood]

As things are right now, if a stand of oak was managed very carefully for a few hundred years I wouldn't be very confident you would even be allowed to harvest it at maturity.

It would be a playground for dogs and town dwellers, there would be uproar.