Big J
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Everything posted by Big J
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That's some going 😄 I've had it show 4.3mpg for a little while when full throttle accelerating up Great Haldon Hill (A38 southbound below Exeter) with a heavy trailer. Problem is that you can't do that for long as you rapidly close in on the speed limit despite the 1 in 8 incline. I've never really tested the 4x4 capability on it as I'm too precious with it.
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I've had up to 32mpg on a long run up to Scotland, but I was only doing about 63mph and I was bored stupid. Over 600 miles from the admittedly rather large tank. 23mpg is standard for general, local hoonery.
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That's pretty much exactly what the Touareg does. 15mpg is spirited driving with 3.5t behind. 28mpg is a steady 70mph on the motorway.
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Bah. Amaroks are little baby cars for little babies. The Touareg V10 is where it's at 😎
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To an extent, yes. But also no. As I said earlier, I've seen birch in Finland where it's simply grown as a weed on waste ground and has a form that is simply unobtainable in the UK. Similarly, scots pine in Sweden grows absolutely, completely straight. It just won't do that here. Management is certainly part of it, but the level of managerial input needs to be much higher here (I feel) and the results are far from guaranteed.
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Interesting thought and I can't argue against it, but would then cite my various visits to Germany (good soil) where the forestry is generally excellent.
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I appreciate that. So what's your explanation for the rapidly grown, but poor quality timber in the UK?
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Most of the forestry here in Devon is planted on such marginal land. There is also loads of spruce on sites that are completely unsuitable. We're working in a bark beetle infested stand at the moment, which I feel is exacerbated by the extremely dry nature of the hill top. Drought stress makes for a happy bark beetle.
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Thanks for that. I shall have a look. I started out on second thinnings on hardwoods, handfelling. Ran a sawmill for 7 years, whilst doing larger diseased elm and sometimes specimen softwood harvesting jobs in Morayshire and the Highlands. Then moved to Devon and do a wide range of forestry. The variations are really interesting, and there certainly is some good quality timber here, but it's a lot of work to get it to that state. You do notice that even just a couple of counties east of us that the oak (particularly) improves no end.
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I agree that it's more complex, but my understanding so far is that the increased wind speed, decreased quality of sunlight in summer and the lack of a dormant season contributes substantially to our rapidly grown, but generally low quality timber. Please educate me on this - I do find it very interesting and it's something I'd like to know more about. I know a little more about silviculture than is needed to be a harvesting contractor, but would not describe myself as a forester. I'm only reflecting on my own limited knowledge in the field and my more extensive empirical observations from being both a harvesting contractor and sawmill owner. I posted a photo of some first thinning spruce from Cornwall on a Swedish forestry group and it was described as balsa wood 😄
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Interesting bit of trivia. A platypus can both lay eggs and produce milk, meaning that it's the only animal able to make it's own custard. That's fresh custard, mind you. Powdered custard is made by Birds.
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More consistent sunlight. The excessive cloud cover here seems to result in more branching as trees strive for light. A brief comparison on this website: Sunshine & Daylight Hours in Stockholm, Sweden Sunlight, Cloud & Day length WWW.STOCKHOLM.CLIMATEMPS.COM Indicates that over summer, Stockholm gets 40-50% more sunshine than Plymouth. I'm entirely open to your hypothesises Mike, but empirically, tree quality is hard to attain in the UK. You can do everything right (good seed stock, suitable ground, correct thinning regime) and still end up with a stand of crap. In Finland, birch grows absolutely perfectly as a weed.
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I believe that the best conifer stands are at higher altitude though? Also, the quality of their summers are better. It'd be interesting to see studies comparing growth rates and timber quality in species such as sitka in their natural ranges versus the UK. Spruce is a wonderful timber and can be of exquisite quality. Soundwood from the Dolomites for violins springs to mind. Our forestry industry in the UK is set up for maximum production with timber quality as a distantly secondary concern. I'm not complaining about it - far from it (I plant a lot of eucalyptus nitens). I'm just pointing out the differences.
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Very windy when compared to more continental locations, though obviously there is local variation. Even in the centre of blocks, you get much more wind stress here than Scandinavia. The softwood blocks I've seen in Finland, Sweden and Germany look like lightly garnished snooker cues. Edit: I should add that we get much better growth rates on the whole, due to the lack of a winter, but if quality is the goal then maximum growth isn't ideal.
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It's still relatively poor quality in the Highlands - just good compared to the rest of the UK (for conifer, in the main). The wind is the biggest issue, I feel. We just have so so much more here than continental Europe, Scandinavia and I presume North America. Wood under constant wind stress has to compensate in ways that don't make for a good saw log.
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Morayshire just grows really good timber. Lots of sunlight in summer, cold winters and fairly well sheltered on account of the Cairngorm. My comments related simply to timber quality. The growth rates of timber down here are bonkers, and unparalleled within the UK. It just doesn't translate to quality unfortunately.
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And WRC grown down here in the West Country can't hold a candle to the stuff I've felled and milled from the Highlands or Morayshire. It's the lack of a dormant season (mild winters) combined with continuous wind stress (causing compression and tension wood growth, as well as much larger basal diameters) combined with the lack of quality sunlight (causing more substantial branch growth) that gives us our often dodgy quality timber in the UK.
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Prices for next year? No idea. Twelvty million dollars per bushel 😄
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Haha 😄 Nonsense - there are midges aplenty everywhere in Bonnie Scotland. I've been mauled sat in my friends garden in the middle of Queensferry. I see them very, very occasionally down here, but it needs to be a damp, still day in a woodland, and even then it's only a few.
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It might be just about viable to send the logs to Helmdon Sawmills at Brackley in Northamptonshire, if they are sufficiently large. It's sad that poplar has such a poor market. Beautiful trees.
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No, at least I don't think so. It's being spread around to try to keep lots of smaller mills happy.
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I'll have to have a chat with my harvester driver and cutter. There is a fair bit more work involved with log cabin spec logs as normally, the majority of the timber would just go through the harvesting head on the machine. Please can you PM me your contact details. Many thanks
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It's on the edge of Exmoor, on the southern side. Grown in a valley, not thinned for the best part of 30 years, so needs to be clearfelled now.
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Agreed. I've got about 1000t of very good, very well drawn (so minimal taper) DF to do next month, and I would have thought that it was much more suitable.
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I can do that in douglas fir from a site we're starting next month. You'll struggle to find trees straight enough in larch, I reckon.
