Dead wood

[Paul in the woods]

Can you have too much fallen, dead, rotting wood in a managed woodland?

 

That might sound like a daft question but when I've seen woodlands coppiced/felled for wildlife management reasons much of the wood is burnt on site rather than being cut and stacked as habitat.

 

I'm clearing out an area of scrub to try and turn it back into an area of managed hazel coppice and there's a huge mount of dead wood as the previous owner appears to have done latest management with a bulldozer!

 

If it's fine to leave it, should it be stacked in several small piles or a couple of huge ones or does it not matter? There's not much risk of fire or anything as it's a wet piece of land.

[Peat]

I was told the other day that in a woodland managed using Continuous Cover Forestry practices, you should aim for 10% (I think) deadwood in relation to standing timber, as this is around the natural proportion. Now obviously no one is ever going to bother measuring this, but... It is a lot. So I think you are unlikely to have too much.

 

I'm in a similar position to you having today taken a walk through the coppice area I will be cutting next year. I say walk, but infact I was clambering around over mountains of brash, where no attempt had been made to tidy it up. There was even rotting cord lying about everywhere. That'll be fun.

 

I generally stack my brash in windrows (long narrow piles) as its easier as you can stack long stuff in there and it means I generally don't have to move far from a pile. Its also apparently good for wildlife as it means beasties can move around under cover. I don't tend to do this in coppice though as they can get in the way of extraction. Lots of smaller piles works for me as I don't wanna be dragging brash from all over.

[Two Acres]

I'm new to this Paul but as I understand it its best to pile up the deadwood. Apparently a dark, damp area is best. That creates a good habitat for the mini-beasts and allows the wood to rot slowly and at different speeds. I've no experience of this as yet but its what I've seen done and its what I'm planning on doing in my wood.

[Logan]

Moderation. Normally over time rotting wood will be laying in various stages of rot all over a forest floor. A large tree would take smaller trees with it when I falls, that would be a fair pile. Within that, some parts would be damp etc and some dry, mammals prefer dry sleeping quarters.

 

A lot of sites get overly "tidied" especially on "wildlife" managed woods, this is probably more pleasing to the humans than anything else. Trees and woodland life are well adapted to growing through rotting brash.

 

Some clearer patches mean you can see the flowers, wood already on the ground aught to be left alone as far as possible (already got happy tenants, would be eco vandalism to un-necessarily move it or stack it neatly...) so if you're extracting the logs, leave the tops spread around is fine, or row it up to drive machines on.

 

Tops spread around and crossed over so it sits high yet lets light in can slow down browsing damage if deer are problem.

 

However, if you're aiming for short rotation hazel harvesting, those sites are usually burnt off or everything cleared to the edge. Then it needs to be solid dense hazel to run up straight, you wouldn't want heaps of brash everywhere, messing up the light and causing bushyness!

 

What you aiming for really?

Edited February 12, 2015 by Logan

[woodyguy]

Seeing as the majority of insect species live in deadwood not live, you can't really have too much dead wood from the wildlife and fungi point of view. Yes stack it a bit so that it retains the moisture. Also stacking high gives nest sites for smaller birds eg wren and robin. I stack mine every 20 foot or so against a tree I'm keeping. Doesn't take up much space. Big stacks can attract/shelter rabbits. Put rotting logs in the base and brash on top. I never burn anything in the wood.

[Paul in the woods]

What you aiming for really?

 

Good question. Currently I have a a couple of acres of scrubby area that has quite a few large, old, hazel stools. Over the last 40 years or so it's been neglected and goat/grey will has moved in, sprawling all over the place. In the area I'm working in there's also blackthorn which has been flattened when a nearby track was cleared, that clearance also dumped other branches and trunks.

 

I want to rejuvenate the hazel and increase it by layering. I don't want the remove all the other trees but reduce some like the willow, especially the stems that are laying across the ground.

 

There's a large amount of dead branches and trunks, not huge diameter but a much larger quantity that you'd normally find. I also have to sort through it to remove stuff that's been dumped such as barbed wire.

 

If I leave it covering the floor it would cover a large percentage, 40%+ possibly. I would like to see what wild herbs flourish when the work is done and have space to layer the hazel so I'll pile up some of the dead wood. It's never going to be tidy.

 

Brash is a separate issue, I plan to deadhedge the area as we have rabbits and deer. The plan for that is to use willow stakes, a layer of gorse on the bottom, other brash and a layer of blackthorn on top. I expect some willow will grow but that will be coppiced off when the deadhedge is removed and will provide sacrificial shoots for the critters.

 

I'm a bit concerned that too much dead wood in once place will suppress other plants from growing up. There's plenty of dead wood and brash all over the woodland and I'm leaving dead standing material where safe.

[woodyguy]

Sounds a good approach. I certainly don't leave dead wood all over the place. Gathering it up and giving it a few sq metres at the base of a larger tree seems a good strategy to me. Like the idea of a dead hedge. Never got around to layering, with the price of high quality hazel being so low it never seemed worth the wait. Be glad to see how you get on though.

[Paul in the woods]

I'm lucky in that I bought the wood to produce materials for myself so I can be more relaxed about time and money. I've got a few acres of hazel that was planted 20 years ago that needs it's first coppice so plenty of material to play with.

 

Hopefully I'll have some idea what I'm doing when the better quality regrowth it ready in several years time!