Best way to manage Oak and Beech trees?

[difflock]

Along our front access roadway.

Beech on the gravel knowe, then Oak on the peat.

Like? Should I remove every other one at some point, and if so, when?

Or just let them be.

P.S.

I was told to just buy slips and not bother with the 6 bigger and disproportionately more expensive ones.

They were absolutely right. Despite the great care I took in planting the 6 bigger ones, the slips rapidly put them to shame. 

Marcus

[Mark J]

I would be inclined to thin that out about now, possibly remove two either side of each one retained. I would look to find my favourite ones and then create some space around them. 

[difflock]

Thank you for that Mark.

So retain every third tree.

 

Better give the scraficial victims an extra special hug before firing up the chainsaw.

Edited 7 hours ago by difflock

[Welshfred]

As above but make sure your selected trees have crown space. You can thin again so don't be too drastic, shade will keep brambles down. Maybe start some pruning on the best stems too. It looks good.

And watch out for squirrels...

[openspaceman]

They do not need thinning yet, they need the competition from their neighbours to maintain apical dominance and height growth over growth of side branches.

 

That said they would benefit from some formative pruning to achieve a length of clean stems, this of course is for clear knot free timber but it is also better for access, if it is done at this stage then the wounds are small and occlude rapidly. Left till later the side branches get much larger and either die off or get cut off  and compromise the stem.

 

This is a big problem with modern widely spaced planting  and ends with a situation like this:

 

Or later still this:

[openspaceman]

Measure the average  top height  of both species, this will give you an idea of the yield class from which you can see when you can start thinning, then you can initially halo the best stems.

 

Also squirrel damage tends to start low, often at a branch and go up, so a pruned stem  can have benefit in limiting damage to higher in the crown.

 

As a rule of thumb in oak and beech you should prune before the stem diameter at the branch exceeds 4" and cut the branch on the collar before it exceeds 1" diameter. Stem length after pruning should not exceed 60% of the top height. Weak forks above the pruned height can be shortened to limit their competitiveness.

 

I would aim for a clean stem of 20 foot in 3 or four lifts over a few years then leave the rest of management to thinning.

[Mark J]

3 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Measure the average  top height  of both species, this will give you an idea of the yield class from which you can see when you can start thinning, then you can initially halo the best stems.

 

Also squirrel damage tends to start low, often at a branch and go up, so a pruned stem  can have benefit in limiting damage to higher in the crown.

 

As a rule of thumb in oak and beech you should prune before the stem diameter at the branch exceeds 4" and cut the branch on the collar before it exceeds 1" diameter. Stem length after pruning should not exceed 60% of the top height. Weak forks above the pruned height can be shortened to limit their competitiveness.

 

I would aim for a clean stem of 20 foot in 3 or four lifts over a few years then leave the rest of management to thinning.

Thanks. I would have just thinned them, I hadn't thought about cropping them. 

[openspaceman]

18 minutes ago, Mark J said:

Thanks. I would have just thinned them, I hadn't thought about cropping them. 

If you think about it planting at 4 or 5 foot spacings, as most mature woodlands were, would have 1 or two thinnings to be at the spacing of modern 10 foot planting.