Hardwood felling and thinning courses/CPD - any ideas?

[codlasher]

I worked in the Chilterns as a young lad to semi retirement.

A 'fall' of Beech is 50 trees. That was the way. The trees were marked with the biggest being left for a later clear fell, whenever that may have been.

The trees were all marked and an extraction route planned, using the slope (down hill as and where possible) This was usually obvious as the trees had always been thinned in the past so there was usually signs of a track.

The felling usually started with the easiest first then you would have a hole in which to put the others. We tried to get the tops into one area so several trees would be dropped into the debris of others. This also meant less breakages too but you had to walk over the brash! The plus was in the burn up as there was less to push up.

Accurate felling was important, this stopped the hangers, using the wind as an aid helped but could be a bu**er sometimes! An County tractor with a front loader helped if there was a 'push' needed. There was a winch but this was used mainly for skidding the sticks out. This machine could cope with 90 cube in 33' but 100 cube was too much. Average was around 70.

All cord was cut to 6' this seemed to work well with manual handling and all brash was cut to 3' so it laid flat. Extraction of the firewood was by another County with a Wartsila roof crane and trailer.

30,000 cube per annum, mainly to Ercol. @ £1.00 per cube. There was mining timber too and firewood was very much a side-line!

If there was a clear-fell no more than 5 acres was taken as this was the area that could be cleared, tidied, re planted and hand weeded using slashers and a vinyard tractor with a cut down swipe in one season.

I remember catching dormice in summer time and occasionally these were put in co-workers piece bags:lol:

codlasher.

[Big J]

I worked in the Chilterns as a young lad to semi retirement.

A 'fall' of Beech is 50 trees. That was the way. The trees were marked with the biggest being left for a later clear fell, whenever that may have been.

The trees were all marked and an extraction route planned, using the slope (down hill as and where possible) This was usually obvious as the trees had always been thinned in the past so there was usually signs of a track.

The felling usually started with the easiest first then you would have a hole in which to put the others. We tried to get the tops into one area so several trees would be dropped into the debris of others. This also meant less breakages too but you had to walk over the brash! The plus was in the burn up as there was less to push up.

Accurate felling was important, this stopped the hangers, using the wind as an aid helped but could be a bu**er sometimes! An County tractor with a front loader helped if there was a 'push' needed. There was a winch but this was used mainly for skidding the sticks out. This machine could cope with 90 cube in 33' but 100 cube was too much. Average was around 70.

All cord was cut to 6' this seemed to work well with manual handling and all brash was cut to 3' so it laid flat. Extraction of the firewood was by another County with a Wartsila roof crane and trailer.

30,000 cube per annum, mainly to Ercol. @ £1.00 per cube. There was mining timber too and firewood was very much a side-line!

If there was a clear-fell no more than 5 acres was taken as this was the area that could be cleared, tidied, re planted and hand weeded using slashers and a vinyard tractor with a cut down swipe in one season.

I remember catching dormice in summer time and occasionally these were put in co-workers piece bags:lol:

codlasher.

 

Fascinating work, and sounds like well managed and planned forestry practice. Thanks for posting that!

 

It seems like there is a lot more hardwood further south. To put it into perspective, not even taking into account any of the other coniferous species, Scotland's forests are 47% Sitka!

 

Spruce pirate/NI Tree - would certainly be a useful workshop as much as anything else. If we could get a variety of people with different experiences together for a day or two of felling, we might all learn a great deal.

 

Matt - shame on you for mentioning the H word! This is delicate, selective thinning - no place for bloody great harvesters and the motorways they need for moving around on!

[Stephen Blair]

Would you say it's more about reading the tree than actual felling J?

[Big J]

Would you say it's more about reading the tree than actual felling J?

 

Might well be, but I might test it with the lads and see whether they prefer a practical or theoretical approach.

[Dean O]

Dont meen to sound negative but If you look at it from another perspective...This seems to be a bit of a vicious circle - the demand for more HW experience seems to be from the scotland area as there is plenty in the south for cutting teeth on.

 

However, as you say, there isnt much HW to be cut. So what would the attendance of a course targeted towards those that require new skills focused on HW felling be like?

 

Is there enough fellers thinking- "darn I could do with being better in the hardwoods cause I never do 'em". ?

[Big J]

Dont meen to sound negative but If you look at it from another perspective...This seems to be a bit of a vicious circle - the demand for more HW experience seems to be from the scotland area as there is plenty in the south for cutting teeth on.

 

However, as you say, there isnt much HW to be cut. So what would the attendance of a course targeted towards those that require new skills focused on HW felling be like?

 

Is there enough fellers thinking- "darn I could do with being better in the hardwoods cause I never do 'em". ?

 

I think that there is more coming into management. Much was planted and forgotten about - a lot of the big estates have fairly large hardwood stands and really struggle to get anyone with the experience to cut them sensitively. I'm going to speak to the chap that originally did my chainsaw certs (Chris White) for guidance on this. Got some interest from a forestry training social enterprise too.

[Spruce Pirate]

I think there's definitely more coming into management. I've done two since December, only small scale, mostly firewood, but a few poles left for sale as logs. There's talk of more coming up in the future as well. I'm not sure it's economically viable at the moment, but as this isn't a factor on these jobs its not a problem. While I'd like to see these making money, I'd rather see them thinned than not as they should produce better in the future.

 

Also, as new plantings of commercial sofwood in the last 20 years has been virtually zero, and a lot of commercial re-stock has been done with broadleaf as well, we have a growing resource of hardwood timber. We should be teaching ourselves how to manage this. I know much (or most?) has been planted at fluffy densities (1100 sph in many cases), but we should still be making some effort to bring these woods into management.

 

Forests all over the world suffer when the people cannot make a living from them, if we want to have our hardwood forests and woodlands properly valued we should make more effort to look after them and gain an income from them. This should start from planting and tending and right up to thinning, underplanting etc. This would seem a good oportunity for those of us who are interested to develope and improve our skills.

 

Should also remember that softwood may have a limited shelf life. SW Scotland this year is not planting any pine (DNB), no larch (phytopthora), no market for firs to speak of so that leaves.... spruce - how long before dendroctonus or ips puts that on the no more planting list? I'm not saying this will happen, but we should at least bear it in mind. It is well worth considering that we may have a different species mix to work with in the future and developing skills before we need them rather than being forced to react to circumstances.

 

Rant over - I feel better now.

 

Definitely interested in learning more on this (in case you hadn't noticed).

[Luke Quenby]

I worked in the Chilterns as a young lad to semi retirement.

A 'fall' of Beech is 50 trees. That was the way. The trees were marked with the biggest being left for a later clear fell, whenever that may have been.

The trees were all marked and an extraction route planned, using the slope (down hill as and where possible) This was usually obvious as the trees had always been thinned in the past so there was usually signs of a track.

The felling usually started with the easiest first then you would have a hole in which to put the others. We tried to get the tops into one area so several trees would be dropped into the debris of others. This also meant less breakages too but you had to walk over the brash! The plus was in the burn up as there was less to push up.

Accurate felling was important, this stopped the hangers, using the wind as an aid helped but could be a bu**er sometimes! An County tractor with a front loader helped if there was a 'push' needed. There was a winch but this was used mainly for skidding the sticks out. This machine could cope with 90 cube in 33' but 100 cube was too much. Average was around 70.

All cord was cut to 6' this seemed to work well with manual handling and all brash was cut to 3' so it laid flat. Extraction of the firewood was by another County with a Wartsila roof crane and trailer.

30,000 cube per annum, mainly to Ercol. @ £1.00 per cube. There was mining timber too and firewood was very much a side-line!

If there was a clear-fell no more than 5 acres was taken as this was the area that could be cleared, tidied, re planted and hand weeded using slashers and a vinyard tractor with a cut down swipe in one season.

I remember catching dormice in summer time and occasionally these were put in co-workers piece bags:lol:

codlasher.

 

Top stuff, really interesting and sound like a proper approach to the job. Thanks for sharing!

[Dean O]

theres a guy in mid wales running a training co called mwmac

they run courses that run along nptc type courses, sort of practical workshops on specific topics, such as winching or processor use (cant think of any good examples) etc etc

 

all based on cirtificate of attendance type "quals"

 

Have a word with them regarding formatting of the type of course you are thinking about I think they would put you in the right direction.

 

The mainguy is called Chris, cant recall his surname.

[Ty Unnos]

theres a guy in mid wales running a training co called mwmac

they run courses that run along nptc type courses, sort of practical workshops on specific topics, such as winching or processor use (cant think of any good examples) etc etc

 

all based on cirtificate of attendance type "quals"

 

Have a word with them regarding formatting of the type of course you are thinking about I think they would put you in the right direction.

 

The mainguy is called Chris, cant recall his surname.

 

His name is Chris Hughes - Good bloke and has something to do with designing NPTC courses so really good idea to get in touch.

 

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