Hypothetical - ideal woodland - what would you plant?

[Big J]

Just a bit of fun. If you had carte blanche to plant a woodland, what would you plant?

 

Me? It would just be birch and alder. It's something I've given some thought to.

 

We do quite a lot of work for the estate I live on. First thinnings, second thinnings and so on in hardwoods. We seem to spend all our time trying to rescue crappy oak, sycamore, ash and beech stands. More often than not, we cut out lovely birch to make way for mediocre (or worse) oak.

 

If it were me, I'd just look at it pragmatically and financially:

 

Oak woodland:

 

* Requires planting, tubing and staking

* Requires regular pruning and pest (ie squirrel) control

* Requires regular thinning to avoid tree death

* No guarantee of quality saw logs at final harvest

* High value final harvest potential, but at least 100 year turnaround

 

Birch and alder woodland:

 

* No planting required, simply spread seeds, allow regeneration

* Requires little or no pruning as more or less self maintaining

* Can tolerate irregular thinning and close planting

* Can be thinned by harvester

* Lower value final value product (although most firewood producers would trip over themselves for high quality birch/alder cord) but produced very much more quickly.

* 40-50 year cycle time from planting to final harvest.

 

Just my two cents really, but I really cannot understand this prioritising of Oak. In almost all instances (in my experience), birch make stunning woodlands and are so trouble free.

 

So, what would you (or have you) plant (ed)?

 

I would maybe include some cherry or ash as minority species for a bit of diversity, but I reckon I'd be planting 50% birch, 30% alder and less than 20% other species.

[slack ma girdle]

I would like a bit of everything.

[MattyF]

Beech and ash .. Definitely no field maple ! I know people say beech are a bad woodland tree as they give no lower canopy light but my favourite woodlands have always been beech .. Just a majestic tree !!!

[Fisherman]

I have actually done this. 9 years ago we planted 15 acres of the roughest land on the farm and yes we planted a lot of alder and birch. We also planted a lot of ash as we had a ready supply of sapplings from another block of woodland on the farm.

The breakdown for us was probably 30% birch, 30% alder, 20% ash and the rest a mixture of oak, cherry, sweet/horse chestnut and one very wet patch with willow. All have grown very well except for the oak, however it does take longer to get going and some oak I planted 25 years ago are now good looking trees.

[MattyF]

Maybe I would chuck in some Lebanon cedars and wellys as well... Infact I think I would just make it more an arboretum but just predominately beech!!

[Buzzsurgeon]

Good Post

 

Agreed, take a look and see what grows naturally in the local area and go with that, help and encourage natural re-gen by re-spacing which will produce a small amount of firewood.

 

I would also choose to favor a species that will coppice well and produce firewood poles on a 10-15 year rotation and perhaps pick a few stems to promote into standards for a higher return for the long term.

[silky fox]

More of a forest....Gingko,s. lots of them. i,d love to go back in time and see a Gingko forest.

[Big J]

I have actually done this. 9 years ago we planted 15 acres of the roughest land on the farm and yes we planted a lot of alder and birch. We also planted a lot of ash as we had a ready supply of sapplings from another block of woodland on the farm.

The breakdown for us was probably 30% birch, 30% alder, 20% ash and the rest a mixture of oak, cherry, sweet/horse chestnut and one very wet patch with willow. All have grown very well except for the oak, however it does take longer to get going and some oak I planted 25 years ago are now good looking trees.

 

Excellent! Nice to see the fruits of your labours. I've only been doing this for three years now, and planting was some of the first work that I did. Obviously, too soon to see the fruits of my labours. However, the two employed foresters on the estate have been here for over 20 years, so they have some nice young woodlands to their names.

 

I think what it is up here in Scotland is that forestry seems to be split two ways - you've got your sitka/hybrid larch and you've got your predominantly oak woodlands. There doesn't seem to be so much birch grow as a crop. It's just so productive and so quickly grown.

 

We thinned out the birch regen in an 8 year old stand of sitka. The very best of the sitka (and from improved stock too) were perhaps 20ft with a 4 inch dbh. The birch (which was not planted - it's effectively a weed in this instance) averaged that height and dbh, and exceptionally was 30ft and 6-7 inch dbh. It quite happily grew 2ft apart and the tree form was lovely. They completely dominated the sitka.

 

I would love to see production statistics for different species over a crop rotation. I'd bet my left nut you'd make more money on birch than Oak!

[agg221]

I think it depends on where you are. If I had the choice of site then I'd pick somewhere that oak did well and grow oak standards over sweet chestnut coppice, with some areas of hazel coppice. I grew up in north Kent and Shorne woods next to the A2 between Gravesend and Rochester are what I'm thinking of if anyone knows them. Only place I've ever seen proper fly agaric too.

 

Alec

[Stereo]

I would go for what hazel coppice with ash standards as that seems to be what works where I am.

 

I'm not adverse to sycamore either. It's a great fast growing wood but does tend to dominate a bit.

 

I have a small alder coppice which is coming along nicely with a few hazel and sycs in there as well. Seems to only grow near rivers where I am, not in the main woods at all.