Ideas on what do with coppiced willow

[doobin]

52 minutes ago, richyrich said:

Are branch loggers much good? If so can you recommend one that's it megabucks? Thanks 

No idea! Sorry. 

[Steven P]

In this case if the OP wants to go that way probably better to hire it in for a day once every couple of years

[Dan Maynard]

3 hours ago, rapalaman said:

Just click on view or download

here are screenshots

Nor on my phone which is Android, can download but not view. I think you can on apple.

[lux]

Sell in bundles for woven fencing / hurdles. Its having a bit of a resurgence in popularity it would seem. 

[Stere]

Looks like poor grade of material for weaving rods from the pics, the wrong variety of willow perhaps or plant spacing & coppice age etc

 

Needs to be more uniform like this pic

 

[Morris]

14 hours ago, GarethM said:

Thought they made reed bed filtration illegal after the big freeze a few years back.

I wasn't aware of that but this system is zero discharge and the EA were happy with it. We basically dug huge v shaped basins (25x8x2m). Lined them, back filled, installed pipe work for incoming waste and planted all this hybrid willow. Any waste that enters can't leave and the willow soaks it up and evapo-transpires it away. It's been working flawlessly, no smells, looks natural, good for habitat and we get this wood every 5 years or so. 

[Morris]

15 hours ago, doobin said:

Branch logger and sell the logs for fire pits on site. Win win. 

That could be a possibility. Although the willow stems are only about 1-2 inch diameter at the base tailing to finger sized towards the upper half. So I imagine most of it will be more sticks than logs. In an ideal world you'd let them grow on so they'd make better logs but I need them to soak up water and I'm on the understanding that fresh shoots do that better than established stock.  

[Excels1or]

Weave them into a living willow structure and grow vegetables in the shit 😂

[Morris]

On 16/01/2024 at 21:14, Stere said:

Looks like poor grade of material for weaving rods from the pics, the wrong variety of willow perhaps or plant spacing & coppice age etc

 

Needs to be more uniform like this pic

 

Yes. Correct on all points. I believe the willow used (Tora, Stott and A [all hybrids] -  vigorous growth and ability to suck up water) are not the best type of willow for weaving but okay for fencing etc. And as they are used to soak up water, they were planted I think about 30-50cm apart to give airflow around each willow to assist with evapo-transpiration. And, I should have been coppicing a third of each willow basin each year on rotation but it's been one of those jobs that always got put off until it was too late for the year. Hence the drive to coppice the lot this year, have a reset and try to stay on top of it going forward. 

[Morris]

On 16/01/2024 at 16:19, scbk said:

Have you got photos? Aint got a way of opening your files

Hope you could eventually see photos from the screen grabs posted by rapalarman (thanks for doing that!). 

I had to get a new iPhone and now it seems to use some .hcic photo file extension I've never seen before.