Enhanced woodland management for fungi

[Charlieh]

Right so Im doing lots of management plans for ancient semi natural woodlands at the moment, with a heavy slant to getting many back into management, along with gaining maximium biodiversity gains. Im using the principles of creating a good mixture of habitats, including un-thinned non intervention areas, heavily thinned areas etc etc.

 

This got me thinking whilst im advising on the creation and retention of standing dead wood, (creation by ring barking most commonly, as i think chemical options may be detrimental), this is often in the thinned areas, thus probably lowering humidy increasing light and probably decreasing the suitability for a large number of the fungi we are trying to increase the habitat for. A small number of timber stacks will also be left in the woods per hectare for inverts and fungi.

 

I will admit my knowledge of woodland fungi is very poor and something i need to work more on. So if anyone has any thoughts on this I would really appreciate them, feel free to bounce ideas around nothing is to crazy. One of the sites im dealing with is nearly all 30yr old birch regen and trying to speed up some veteranising of these trees is going to be difficult, Im specifying a lot of dead wood standing on this site, as well as halo thinning some of the bigger trees, I was also wondering about winching some limbs off to create bit of decay (nothing like speeding the process up a bit), so any crazy ideas appreciated

Edited October 11, 2011 by Charlieh

[arbmark]

this is the kind of stuff i like. if its a site without public access, then the world is your oyster. Worked with English Nature (as was) basically vandalising woodland for habitat creation - smashing off limbs, leaving big stubs & hangers, scraping bark, boring slots etc. sounds like you got the right flava to me - mix it up. Variety man. If you are worried about opening up the canopy maybe mainly ring trees that have a very small canopy area? If there isnt much tree species variation are you planting up, especially in glades? mix of log piles and long boughs left as they land.....

[sloth]

You lucky git, sounds like a great bit of work. I'm sure the three fungateers (monkey hama fungus) will have some good ideas for this kind of limitless creativity...

[Charlieh]

Cheers Guys

 

Its nice to be able to be in a position to specify stuff like this in management plans, and I think for the most part the land owners accept that its beneficial to the woodland ecosystem so are keen to implement it where its practical, luckly the site i want to do most on has no public access and has had an ecological survey done and it well be re-surveyed in about 5years to monitor the effect of the work its just a balancing act between, birds, beetles, fungi, ground flora, shrub layer species and trees.

 

 

Some of the halo thinning of bigger trees i may do by ring barking the competing trees, although I ultimatly dont want to have a negative impact on the remaining timber stock, anyone have any specific thoughts on this?

Edited October 12, 2011 by Charlieh

[Fungus]

Im doing lots of management plans for ancient semi natural woodlands at the moment, with a heavy slant to getting many back into management, along with gaining maximium biodiversity gains. Im using the principles of creating a good mixture of habitats, including un-thinned non intervention areas, heavily thinned areas etc etc.

This got me thinking whilst im advising on the creation and retention of standing dead wood, (creation by ring barking most commonly, as i think chemical options may be detrimental), this is often in the thinned areas, thus probably lowering humidy increasing light and probably decreasing the suitability for a large number of the fungi we are trying to increase the habitat for. A small number of timber stacks will also be left in the woods per hectare for inverts and fungi. One of the sites im dealing with is nearly all 30yr old birch regen ... I'm specifying a lot of dead wood standing on this site, as well as halo thinning some of the bigger trees, I was also wondering about winching some limbs off to create bit of decay

 

Charlieh,

Read :

1. Succession of saprotrophic macrofungi,

2. Endo- and ectomycorrhizae and

3. the pine, beech, alder and birch specific ecosytems macrofungi thread,

to get a general idea of natural forest ecology, tree species specific ecosystems and their tree species specific soil food webs including tree species specific saprotrophic and ectomycorrhizal macrofungi.

Edited October 12, 2011 by Fungus