Growing eucalyptus coppice for firewood

[sandspider]

[petercb]

Planted a Gunnii in our wood about 20 years ago, it grew like hell and is as tall as our mature Norway Spruces. Trunk is probably 18" dia. Load of gum nuts on it.

[neiln]

7 hours ago, Stubby said:

Depends on age and species . It does go off like concrete if left too long before splitting and if its got that helical grain that some have its a machiene job only . Burnt quite a bit over the years and it is great fire wood , in a stove that is , as it pops and spits like a goodun .

Is OK Green even with the spiral,  at least the stuff I had was.   I've not found it to spit either but then nothing does if its really well dried. 

[sandspider]

Just a quick update - I'm growing some E. gunnii from seed to add to my collection. Hopefully these will coppice better (I've also been advised to grow E. glaucescens, so may try that next year). However, the E. gunnii are growing a good bit slower than the E. nitens and neglecta I planted the first time. It's about 6 weeks after planting, and the gunnii are about 8cm tall at best. Can't find pics of the nitens and neglecta at this age, but as I remember they were at least twice as tall. They were 30 - 40 odd cm tall when I planted them out at 16 weeks or so.

[Stere]

Hasn't it being very dry this yr though ?

 

Do you use mulch or  plastic etc as thats makes a massive difference for the first 5 yrs.

 

EDIT see that you use weed mat 🙂

Edited June 28, 2023 by Stere

[sandspider]

It has been dry, but the small plants are still inside and I'm watering them manually, as I did for the small nitens & neglecta. i did use plastic weed membrane, but I probably won't do again as it's gathering soil on top and growing stuff, and also starting to break down in the UV. I'll mulch with carboard in future, and once the eucs are about 1m tall they seem to take off regardless! (Well, the nitens and neglecta did anyway)

[Big J]

Eucalyptus nitens, planted February 2021 as a 25cm whip. 

 

Photo taken last week with a 2m rule for scale. 10cm dbh.

 

 

[sandspider]

Impressive, but probably not as quick as mine! Where is that?

 

I've finally bought and planted some E. glaucescens. With heritage from an Australian ski resort, so they can take the cold! Quite pricey, will see how well they do compared to the cheaper seed grown ones.

They also seem more delicate, according to the seller. They benefit from sulphur chips and specialist fertilisers, whereas most of my other eucs I've just whacked into the ground and stuck some cardboard around as mulch...

[Big J]

32 minutes ago, sandspider said:

Impressive, but probably not as quick as mine! Where is that?

 

I've finally bought and planted some E. glaucescens. With heritage from an Australian ski resort, so they can take the cold! Quite pricey, will see how well they do compared to the cheaper seed grown ones.

They also seem more delicate, according to the seller. They benefit from sulphur chips and specialist fertilisers, whereas most of my other eucs I've just whacked into the ground and stuck some cardboard around as mulch...

 

Glaucescens is definitely more frost hardy. Nitens grows like a rocket, but struggles with frost - the issue is less the absolute temperature, but more the amount of time that it's exposed to it. So freezing days are really bad.

 

The tree in the photo is in Cullompton, Devon. I planted a few around the town, and lots of hectares elsewhere on forestry sites.

 

The issue with the one in the photo is that it's planted on compacted verge. Badly drained and competing grass at the start. The god-awful Devon clay means that the establishment phase was difficult - when it's dry it's like concrete and when it's wet it's swimming. But it did almost 2m in the first year and has continued on at that rate.

 

On a forestry site near Chard, we had considerably quicker growth rates, but the only one I can get measurements from is this one in Cullompton as my friend lives nearby. I think it's close to 8m now and should be 15m within another 4 years. They really pick up the growth rate from year 5.

[sandspider]

My nitens have survived frost, several days of -5c ish, once they get about 1m tall. Maybe 1 year old? Before that, they're a lot more delicate.