Growing firewood

[Marko]

2017 update:

Hybrid willow would normally be harvested now for biomass. It is a perfect size for making wood chunks but we will be leaving it to see what sort of logs it can produce by year six.

[Marko]

Photos hopefully attached this time

[sandspider]

Good growth for 3 years. Have you fertilised or mulched them or anything, or just left them to it?

 

What varieties of willow and eucalyptus are they?

[spandit]

The willow looks like an osier viminalis hybrid - I think some of the cuttings I gave you were similar. We get amazing growth from it every year

[sandspider]

They're not sprouting yet, but I think the buds are swelling a bit.

[Marko]

No fert or mulch on these. I did try mulching with woodchip on some other willow and they really didn't like it; a fungus from the rotting chip attacked the base of the whip.

[Marko]

A quick update after an interesting development with the hybrid willow. To recap, we have a trial plot of hybrid willow to see if we can grow nice sized firewood logs on established stools rather than harvest them for biomass woodchip or wood chunks. A few stools are 'failing' with nothing more than the weight of the branches.

 

On a brighter note, the pollarded ash is doing well. The picture is 1.5 years of regrowth on the trees pictured on page 1 with the hens.

 

A bit of a write up can be found on http://www.rustical.co.uk/woodstuff/growing-firewood-2017-update/

 

 

 

[spandit]

Willow does seem to be prone to snapping as you've shown. I was trying to convert some untidy shrubs into higher pollards by promoting a single stem but they all fell down and have returned to being untidy shrubs.

[Gary Prentice]

Don't know, but I think with willow the growth rate of the new shoots is so rapid that the trunk/stool wood doesn't expand sufficiently to create a good union.  The reverse situation of the branch shedding collar on weak limbs. 

[Marko]

I agree but I will leave it to see if it is a continuing problem. At the moment it seems to be confined to stools on the periphery but, as they are falling into wind, I think it is more to do with weight than weather. In any case the Euc is outperforming the hybrid willow in terms of speed of growth but it remains to be seen how it coppices.