In Desperate times...My Silky saves the day!

[Stubby]

1 minute ago, Big J said:

 

 Anyone fancy crawling through a bramble thicket in 15 years to extract 2000 plastic tubes per hectare from underneath oak bushes with only 1.3m of straight stem before stag heading?

Not me Jonathan , no way ! 🙂

[lux]

You must not climb many trees.

Maybe you’re only climbing the small trees with thin soft bark they like to chew on and not up the big trees they generally don’t like. Who knows.

Honestly if you’re saying you fell or remove more trees / branches etc to squirrel damage than other fungi etc I’ll take your word for it but I’ll be surprised.

[Big J]

1 minute ago, lux said:

Maybe you’re only climbing the small trees with thin soft bark they like to chew on and not up the big trees they generally don’t like. Who knows.

Honestly if you’re saying you fell or remove more trees / branches etc to squirrel damage than other fungi etc I’ll take your word for it but I’ll be surprised.
 

I seen countless plantations where every single oak, sycamore, beech, maple and birch is knobbled. I've even seen ash stripped.

Hectares of completely pointless planting. They'll never amount to anything more scrub.

[openspaceman]

1 minute ago, Big J said:

Hectares of completely pointless planting. They'll never amount to anything more scrub.

Part of that is down to wide spaced planting and use  of tubes. The plastics problem existed before tubes, even in the early 70s spiral guard s and whips predominated in hardwood planting. I was paid an extra half P to remove spiral guards when pruning  poplar to 8ft, purely because of damage to the stems as they ingrew. The job was to remove and drop but despite my boss's [1] view that it was insignificant litter, I took them home and binned them, for which I was allowed to take the company Simca 1100 home and left my Bantam at work.

 

[1] he never lived to see the problem from plastic waste was to be acknowledged as he died at 49.

[lux]

I seen countless plantations where every single oak, sycamore, beech, maple and birch is knobbled. I've even seen ash stripped.

Hectares of completely pointless planting. They'll never amount to anything more scrub.

Not the only culprits though. Every plantation around here has high chairs in it for culling the deer that strip up recently planted stuff.

Out of interest so the FC have organised squirrel culls to protect plantations. I’ve no doubt they strip up young fresh trees. ?

[Stubby]

4 minutes ago, lux said:

Not the only culprits though. Every plantation around here has high chairs in it for culling the deer that strip up recently planted stuff.

Out of interest so the FC have organised squirrel culls to protect plantations. I’ve no doubt they strip up young fresh trees. ?

The trouble with the deer is because of lockdown we have not been able to get the Dutch " clients " over for stalking ( read culling ),

[lux]

The trouble with the deer is because of lockdown we have not been able to get the Dutch " clients " over for stalking ( read culling ),

Not enough people willing to pay for it in the UK or overseas clients are more profitable? No idea the cloggies came over here just to shoot deer.

[Stubby]

Just now, lux said:

Not enough people willing to pay for it in the UK or overseas clients are more profitable? No idea the cloggies came over here just to shoot deer.

They do , well have for several years up till now .

[skyhuck]

2 hours ago, lux said:

Maybe you’re only climbing the small trees with thin soft bark they like to chew on and not up the big trees they generally don’t like. Who knows.

Honestly if you’re saying you fell or remove more trees / branches etc to squirrel damage than other fungi etc I’ll take your word for it but I’ll be surprised.
 

Nope, large mature Beech and Sycamore, many totally recked with bark stripped from the tops of branches, causing rot and limb/branch failure.

[Timbermcpherson]

On 02/05/2021 at 05:50, lux said:

Not the only culprits though. Every plantation around here has high chairs in it for culling the deer that strip up recently planted stuff.

Out of interest so the FC have organised squirrel culls to protect plantations. I’ve no doubt they strip up young fresh trees. ?