Cost per Cord - 2015

[shavey]

If landowners stopped murdering hedges every year, then there would be plenty of firewood.

 

Luckily on exmoor there are still miles of beech hedges still cut and laid for firewood

[farmer rod]

If landowners stopped murdering hedges every year, then there would be plenty of firewood.

 

We are no longer allowed to murder them every year, now we do it once every three years! (And we have to wait till September 30th when the ground is too wet)

[slack ma girdle]

We are no longer allowed to murder them every year, now we do it once every three years! (And we have to wait till September 30th when the ground is too wet)

 

Begs the question why do it in the first place?

Why not leave it for twenty years and sell the timber standing, and make some money

[Scotty38]

We are no longer allowed to murder them every year, now we do it once every three years! (And we have to wait till September 30th when the ground is too wet)

 

Thought you could still do them each year outside of 1st March to 31st August? I realise there are exceptions to this and you can also trim in August if planting rape???

[cornish wood burner]

Begs the question why do it in the first place?

Why not leave it for twenty years and sell the timber standing, and make some money

 

If hedges are left to grow then the farmer loses a wide strip of growing area around his field.

1000M perimeter around a field 5 M wide would cost around £10K to purchase that area so £10K wasted

[Alycidon]

I have also found it hard to source quality timber of an appropriate diameter, lots of people say yes yes but almost no one produces the goods.

 

I have seen Birch/Ash/Syc cord at £65 a ton recently roadside, that make it cheaper for me to import kiln dried from the Baltic. The FC got a bit upset about that when I told them at a recent meeting.

 

But things have a habit of coming full circle sooner or later so I last spring I only processed what comes off our farm and the estate next door, maybe 100 cube and bought the rest in as kilned stacked crates. Currently I have maybe 30 tons of cord in stock for 16-17 winter and another 100 tonnes or so next door, thats it but am looking at upgrading my JAPA 700 especially if there is EU funding for part of it.

 

A

[farmer rod]

Begs the question why do it in the first place?

Why not leave it for twenty years and sell the timber standing, and make some money

 

We have a hedgecutting protocol (sounds more exotic than it is) which includes roadside/trackside/footpath cut every year where we can get to it, field boundaries that are hedge we cut every three years if it hasnt got too wet, most of our fields have at least some boundary with woodland which we coppice if the fence needs doing, because if we dont the new fence gets mullered but a falling tree as soon as I leave the field.

 

I have 100 tonnes stack of ash and alder which I think cost me as much as it is worth, (offers welcome cut Aug14) and in a 70 metre stretch of hedge I came back with one grabful of nut sticks which I regard as free because it was my own sweat.

 

I have got two lovely hazel hedges which we no longer cut, partly to help doormice, but mostly because I really like hazel nuts.

[Woodworks]

If hedges are left to grow then the farmer loses a wide strip of growing area around his field.

1000M perimeter around a field 5 M wide would cost around £10K to purchase that area so £10K wasted

 

eh. Hedges are either flailed, laid or left to grow around here. How does this effect the usable land? Letting them grow gives our sheep good weather protection and a crop of fuel that has prooved more profitable than the livstock

 

Managing the hedges for wood is labour intensive in comparison with flailing every year but not sure it costs much more in the long run when it's all added up.

 

http://www.organicresearchcentre.com/manage/authincludes/article_uploads/project_outputs/TWECOM%20ORC%20Best%20Practice%20Guide%20v%201.0.pdf

[Grizzly Adam]

I am surrounded by farm land here and it seems the current push is to restore the natural prairie on all the bits in between. So down come all the bush at the edge of field, along rivers and streams. Some larger wooded areas owned by the state are being clear cut. Fast forward to autumn when all the corn and other crops are harvested and what do we have? Dust storms! There is nothing to keep that loose black soil from flying, nothing to slow the winds down. What do we have in winter? Roads drifted shut repeatedly for the same reasons. Yet no one see how this is harmful, and how history is repeating itself.

[cornish wood burner]

eh. Hedges are either flailed, laid or left to grow around here. How does this effect the usable land? Letting them grow gives our sheep good weather protection and a crop of fuel that has prooved more profitable than the livstock

 

Managing the hedges for wood is labour intensive in comparison with flailing every year but not sure it costs much more in the long run when it's all added up.

 

http://www.organicresearchcentre.com/manage/authincludes/article_uploads/project_outputs/TWECOM%20ORC%20Best%20Practice%20Guide%20v%201.0.pdf

If you have ever grown an arable crop in a field with trees along the hedges you would see a vast difference under the trees. Lack of light, nutrients probably taken by the trees. I'm not saying flailing is right just explaining the financial reasons. I grew up on a farm with some trees on hedges BTW