What will an ash woodland look like in 10 years time?

[Steve Bullman]

Is there any public access to the woodlands or it’s borders?

[Paul in the woods]

15 hours ago, 5lab said:

will it die slowly enough that new natural growth will take over (there's a few sycamores in a corner), or will it just be a barren wasteland for 30 years?

 

What age and size is the ash? I've got two patches of woodland containing ash with dieback. One, on a level site, has planted ash about 35 years old. Within a couple of years of them showing obvious dieback the trees die and fall over. Luckily at the base of many of the trees self seeded hazel grows up and is now taking over. We have loads of deer as well and the hazel copes. Have you had a good look around to see what else is there?

 

My other patch has mature ash, with many trees showing obvious dieback, they are still standing but shed a fair bit in the wind. Felling any will be fun, well I will need to be careful of large falling branches.

[dan blocker]

Can’t see that a 20% slope is a reason not to remove the timber. You haven’t stated what size the trees are but there several options for low impact extraction. It’s not all about walking through the bluebells, woodland ownership can be hard work!

[pleasant]

What will an ash woodland look like in 10 years time?

 

..well, if it's in the South East it will have flats built on it!

[Amarus]

I strongly recommend reading the guidance by the FC & NE on SSSI here, especially section 4.10.

 

Managing woodland SSSIs and ancient woodland with ash dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus) - GOV.UK

WWW.GOV.UK

 

In a nutshell if your SSSI is designated because of the ash woodland then you will not be given a felling licence to clear all of it at once. If the site is steep then you need as much volume as possible to help with the costs hence the need for felling it all at once. It will go downhill from there.

 

There is no (common) sense in NE and the FC will dance to NE's tune only.

 

If I were you I would ask for professional advice on buying a woodland property first as it is clear to me you need a lot of help. You could vet the agents on their knowledge on ash and SSSI i.e. list the number of felling licences or managements plans they secured with ash and designations being present in the last few years.

 

Secondly, I would pass on this lot entirely. Buying a SSSI is no game and technically NE could force you to manage the woodland towards favourable recovering status no matter the costs to you. It will be classed as unfavourable declining by default due to the ADB.

 

And to answer your question: An unholy mess of broken trees (as all ash will be dead if not already)  with a lot of bramble and and other scrub until the sycamore wins in 40-50 years.

Edited January 30 by Amarus

[sandspider]

22 hours ago, openspaceman said:

Dr. Jo Clark, who heads Future Trees and is running  a breeding trial for resistant strains, says no common ash is immune, some show good signs of resistance. I got the impression when she visited and identified about 6 trees on the site with full foliage, taking cuttings via shotgun next month, that this means once the main spore load from leaf litter under dying trees reduces we may see progeny surviving. Currently any seedling succumb in a season.

 

How do you take cuttings via shotgun?! Sounds like fun!

[5lab]

17 hours ago, Steve Bullman said:

Is there any public access to the woodlands or it’s borders?

no access inside. To the northern edge is a field and within that field (not close to the land) is a bridleway, but not within the distance a tree could fall

 

15 hours ago, Paul in the woods said:

 

What age and size is the ash? I've got two patches of woodland containing ash with dieback. One, on a level site, has planted ash about 35 years old. Within a couple of years of them showing obvious dieback the trees die and fall over. Luckily at the base of many of the trees self seeded hazel grows up and is now taking over. We have loads of deer as well and the hazel copes. Have you had a good look around to see what else is there?

 

Its an ancient woodland so the trees are all sorts of ages. I imagine a whole bunch of them grew after the '87 storm, but its all a mix of sizes.

 

I'm not knowledgeable enough to identify what all the trees are in winter, but have access to the forest management plan which shows the various ratios per sector of the woods - most of them ash is way above 80%, there's a whole load of other things (Sycamore, beech, etc) mixed in in small proportions

11 hours ago, Amarus said:

In a nutshell if your SSSI is designated because of the ash woodland then you will not be given a felling licence to clear all of it at once. If the site is steep then you need as much volume as possible to help with the costs hence the need for felling it all at once. It will go downhill from there.

 

There is no (common) sense in NE and the FC will dance to NE's tune only.

 

If I were you I would ask for professional advice on buying a woodland property first as it is clear to me you need a lot of help. You could vet the agents on their knowledge on ash and SSSI i.e. list the number of felling licences or managements plans they secured with ash and designations being present in the last few years.

 

Secondly, I would pass on this lot entirely. Buying a SSSI is no game and technically NE could force you to manage the woodland towards favourable recovering status no matter the costs to you. It will be classed as unfavourable declining by default due to the ADB.

 

And to answer your question: An unholy mess of broken trees (as all ash will be dead if not already)  with a lot of bramble and and other scrub until the sycamore wins in 40-50 years.

 

the SSSI is mostly (90%) grassland - the woods were designated because they helped provide a breeding area for birds. So the fact its Ash is (I don't think) particularly relevent. That said, SSSI will make it really hard to figure out what's allowed/necessary. 

 

We weren't really looking to buy a woods (I always kinda wanted one, but wasn't seriously looking) - the reason we took this seriously is that its within walking distance of our house. The real value is somewhere for our 2 (currently small) boys to grow up playing in, and if its mostly going to be ash and falling branches, it doesn't feel like this meets that need.

 

Appreciate all the help

[gdh]

I haven't had a chance to read the whole thread so apologies if I double post .

 

From what I understand only about 1% will be immune to dieback and maybe 5% will recover so I would work on the basis it's all going to be dead.

 

There are immune varieties of ash (so far) but I think it's still being worked on and you would be very lucky to have them.

 

In terms of felling, if they're a reasonable size then access is more important than slopes but from experience of harvesting ash die back I would say to halve any estimate of standing volume because it shatters everywhere.

 

If they look badly affected they're usually even worse inside on bigger trees.

[openspaceman]

6 hours ago, sandspider said:

 

How do you take cuttings via shotgun?! Sounds like fun!

I have never done it and would happily climb these trees to get some cutting material but apparently this is not viewed as safe so they shoot a branch off, presumably a number 5 shot or heavier and a full choke barrel.

 

They are coming next week but I am not invited.

[Steven P]

7 hours ago, 5lab said:

We weren't really looking to buy a woods (I always kinda wanted one, but wasn't seriously looking) - the reason we took this seriously is that its within walking distance of our house. The real value is somewhere for our 2 (currently small) boys to grow up playing in, and if its mostly going to be ash and falling branches, it doesn't feel like this meets that need.

 

Happy to be corrected but the trees arn't going to be dropping branches all the time, mostly they will stay as they are, you should notice which trees are suffering in time to make an assessment of what to do.... chances of something falling onto one your boys is probably remote. It is a chance I'd consider if I had a good offer of a woodland. Other factors such as the cost of manging the ash die back might come into play more.