Big J

I do not envy any of you having to sign up to this shitshow bureaucratic nonsense. Firewood is already overpriced to the point of being unaffordable as a source of primary heating. I don't mean that as a slight to any producer - we have poor quality trees, in small, difficult to manage blocks, a crappy transport infrastructure, difficult climate for drying and idiot customers. I don't know how any of you manage to make a business out of it without working yourself into an early grave, and I doff my hat to you. Regardless, this whole Woodsure scheme isn't going to have any effect on particulate matter in the air at all. Domestic firewood users burn so little timber in the scheme of things that even if the scheme were to work, it's hardly going to make a difference. We just finished burning off brash on a site we recently clearfelled. I hate burning brash, but on this site we had no choice. Far too soft to send a mulcher in and impossible to windrow due to the aforementioned boggy ground. So we made up 11 large stacks. It'd take me a lifetime of fulltime burning to get through the volume of timber we burned off. But it's entirely legal and something I'd not rush to repeat. I do have one firewood customer who is in the process of being reamed by Woodsure as we speak. They seem keen to get started penalising producers.

It's a tough call. I appreciate you taking the time to fully explain your position too - it makes for interesting reading and I agree for the most part. Running a small harvesting company, I tend to find that you get what you pay for. I pay my cutters £20/hr (self employed) and their output is such that they are markedly cheaper than one chap that I use occasionally who I pay about £13/hr. That guy brought a cutter with him for a job we did last month and I had to say that I couldn't pay him more than £80 a day for the 2 days he did, given how slow he was. For me with my work, it all comes down to production speed. A cutter on £200 a day producing 20 tonnes of product is much cheaper than a cutter on £120 a day producing 7 tonnes a day. The chasm between the fastest and slowest is even more extreme than that. I've had many more cutters I've ditched after a trial week than I've kept. When I was cutting, in 40 year old hardwood (I spent three years cutting on the same estate) there wasn't anyone that could keep up with me, but that's almost 10 years ago now and I'm far too broken to cut full time now. My limited experience with tree surgery is that it's a lot more cutthroat, in terms of wages. The proprietors have less work ahead of them than forestry contractors and seem to make more of an effort to keep costs down to keep a kitty in case of a downturn in work. It's also a lot less skilled, until you get into climbing. I'd suggest getting your CS30-31 and getting into forestry (depending on where you are in the country). Once you're experienced and productive, you'll be a rare breed and able to ask for £200/day. Doing more technical work (like felling for a skyline, felling outsiders or chucking trees at harvesters) up in remote parts of Scotland can command up to £300 a day. Just my thoughts.

I seen countless plantations where every single oak, sycamore, beech, maple and birch is knobbled. I've even seen ash stripped. Hectares of completely pointless planting. They'll never amount to anything more scrub.

Adjacent to the block we were working in was a small copse of mature beech. Over 100 years old. Looking at the canopies, you can almost tell the exact point where the greys moved in. They are perfect trees to an exact point, and then the canopies above that point was gnarled and twisted. I can say with absolute certainty that planting broadleaves anywhere in a woodland setting our part of the country is pointless without extremely thorough control measures. It's worse than pointless. It's spending £3.60 (plus VAT) on creating hardwood bushes and a future plastic waste problem. Anyone fancy crawling through a bramble thicket in 15 years to extract 2000 plastic tubes per hectare from underneath oak bushes with only 1.3m of straight stem before stag heading?

Is there anyone here who would consider looking after a recently planted site near to Chard? Plenty of roe deer and the landowners are very keen to have their numbers reduced. Please message if you can help. All necessary insurances and certificates are needed please.

You see the moment you use the term "native Britons", you've made a fairly strong case for you being a bigot. I f*cking hate that term. Like the accident of the location of your birth gives you the supreme right to live in a place. A related point - why are people coming into the UK immigrants and people leaving the UK expats? Regardless, I don't care about this storm in a teacup that you seem to be intent on stirring up. If you can't see the evidence of Victorian colonialism as you wade through Himalayan Balsam, to climb a eucalyptus covered in Virginia creeper, perhaps you need to pay more attention. I reiterate - I like gardening, I don't care about this. You chose to start a thread with some pretty aggressive (and false) conclusions.

I honestly couldn't care less about this argument that you seem intent on having. It's something that James Wong feels is worth raising. He's not accusing anyone of being racist. That's the conclusion you've drawn. Give it a rest man. He's entitled to make a polite and inoffensive point without folk like you jumping down his throat accusing him of all manner of racial sh1t stirring.

Nope. I was reacting to your conclusions rather than James Wong's comments. If we fail to take heed of our past we run the risk of repeating the same mistakes. There is nothing racist about taking about race and its historical context. Immediately crying bloody murder the moment someone does raise the topic is the equal and opposite reaction to the perceived extreme leftist sentiment that you claim to see. It's exhausting. If you listened to Gardeners Question Time you wouldn't take his comments so seriously. He's an affable and pleasant chap.

They may be at one end of the cultural sensitivity spectrum, and perhaps that isn't so healthy. But you're certainly at the other extreme, and I'd say that's equally problematic. A happy medium isn't a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with highlighting historical issues relating to culture, race and imperialism, all of which inform our current situation and many of which don't bear up well under 21st century scrutiny. I'd say that by reacting to this interview with James Wong in the way that you have suggests you were looking for something to be offended about.

Having a conversation about race and racism are two completely different things. In much the same way that talking about sex doesn't mean you're talking about sexual abuse. Most countries have an uncomfortable past, but the UK is very unwilling to talk about it's more serious transgressions. I don't think that that is the case in this instance, hence my belief that the use of the word racism is misguided.

I think the title of this thread misconstrues James Wong's comments somewhat. He's possibly overthinking it, but he does raise valid points. I'd consider myself a keener gardener than most (listen to Gardener's question time often, on which James Wong is a regular panelist) and I'm honestly not bothered by the use (or misuse) of the term heritage. But he's still entitled to his opinion, and he didn't imply that it was racism.

There is a big price hike for 30cm plus, but we don't see much if anything of that size here. Most of what we deal with goes to Pontralis, where it's effectively a 15cm TDUB log. Low size and low quality. Large diameter douglas fir is making very good money here.

Not sure on norway, but sitka is around £105/t roadside in your neck of the woods at the moment. Norway is usually a bit less.

This site will be about 10-12 ponds richer by the time we're done. Average size 20ft x 15ft.

We're around £72-74/t down here at the moment for standard 3.7m material. More for bigger stuff.

It's hardly low impact but the guys are having some fun brash raking and digging ditches on our current site. The mud you see on the back of the machine is how far down he went. Where he's presently sat is just standard for working there. It was interesting watching him work - it was like the machine was sat on a massive trifle, such was the solidity of the ground. And we also dug the neighbouring woodland owner a pond as a thank you for putting up with the disruption. He was absolutely delighted. 90 minutes well spent.

Much more satisfying though was a first thinning we did just before in Cornwall. Ponsse Ergo harvester and me on the Vimek. Shout out to Matt Storrs for the site tidy up at the end. The landowners are delighted, have made a bit of money and it'll keep growing rapidly now (the photo with my hand on a log is one of the larger first lengths of Sitka, at 21 years old). The photo with the harvester is us taking the line of trees back from a powerline.

There is a mountain of brash and chipwood under the track too.

An interesting article. I skimmed over it, but will look more closely this weekend. It confirms what I was thinking, which is that the majority of damage is done by the forwarder, not the harvester. The Vimek really is an excellent first thinnings forwarder, working in conjunction with a conventional harvester. It's so small in the rack that tree damage is reduced, root compaction is almost eliminated and it's genuinely enjoyable to operate. I've been back in the Komatsu on full bog this week on a clearfell and haven't enjoyed it much. I've not been properly stuck (though I had to unload myself fully once to get out) but I had to pull the harvester out twice. These photos are actually from the main haul routes. I'm not concerned about the ground damage, as the whole site is getting majorly remodelled next week with excavators digging a network of drainage ditches and ponds throughout the site. Hoping to improve the biodiversity, but also the productivity. It's mostly eucalyptus nitens going back in.

Are you able to collect in Devon?

Poor ground yes, water logged - not so much. They appreciate well drained, lighter soil. Not exactly sure. It's the posting out that is the issue. How many were you thinking?

Is no one interested in planting up a bit of eucalyptus? It grows like stink and gives you a cracking woodfuel

I think he's in your neck of the woods, but speak to Nick at Elmsdown Forestry. He's had the same forwarder as me, and has been really helpful when I've chatted to him on the phone: https://www.facebook.com/ElmsdownForestry/