Big J

This was a Forest Research block, so not planted for economic reasons, though management has reverted back to the estate that owns the land now it's 10 years old. I'd hope a lot of it ends up in the firewood market as the ash won't last long. Also the sawlog market, for fencing, pallets etc.

That would be the lowest roadside value, I'd hope. I'm hoping to be able to put it into the firewood market, and some into log. The sawmilling market for eucalyptus in the UK needs development though. Not sure that's a risk here - it never stops fecking raining. The primary issue with the plantations there is lack of demand for the product, so they aren't thinned as often as is needed, resulting in a lot of standing deadwood.

4.5 ha. Already standing at about 2100t at 10yrs, 7 months. It's epic. Doubly so because it established badly due to the harsh winter 10/11 when it was only 7 months old.

Using the example of the eucalyptus plantation I've been mentioning, I'd start strip felling and replanting along the north and east side of the block. The trees are largest here, having been sheltered from the prevailing wind. Conversely, the trees on the western edge are smallest, so these would be the last to be felled. I'd spread the felling out over 8 years, allowing 2 years between each operation. Tackle the block in four bites, each time replanting immediately. Each time, moving further west and south. The retained trees would afford the newly planted trees substantial shelter, the brash left on the ground would help surpress weeds to an extent, and canopy closure would be achieved in 18 months. The final strip to be felled would be the western edge (which, from my measurements if about 30-35% less productive). The replanted trees on this edge wouldn't have as much shelter from prevailing winds, but it would only represent a quarter of the plantation and would still be no worse than a new planting. They'd still have the brash on the ground. Then, leave for 5-6 years and repeat. Most of the plantation has decent protection from inclement weather through it's growth cycle and production on this site exceeds 50 cubic metres per hectare per year. So each 1/4 removed would be around 600t, with 2500t being the expectation per 12 years. If you were to completely clearfell, you'd stunt the trees a little in their first couple of years until canopy closure was achieved. More broadly, looking at other species, there are loads of other reasons for CCF, many of which focus on the composition of the soil. Either way, I don't like clearfells and I try to avoid them now.

I'm sorry to hear that your plantation has suffered. Unless a cooperative approach between neighbouring landowners is adopted, any control you do on your land will simply open a vacuum for other squirrels to fill. Chatting to a chap at the National Trust, they are trialing a form of contraception for greys, which if successful, would render them effectively infertile. Best solution is pine martens though. They are extraordinarily effective at reducing grey numbers. I take your point about limiting access for rewilded areas, but I'd counter that yes dogs can be an issue, but with a great deal more open access, rewilded land, the spot pressures that we see now (given that there is almost nowhere to walk freely) would be hugely reduced. By giving the public the right to access (what would effectively be) common land, we can (with education) get the public to be emotionally invested in their surrounds. I'm not saying this would definitely work, but the idealist in me likes to think so.

I think it is, yes. I see countless stands of trees through work. Mostly younger stands these days too. Of everything that I have seen in the last year or two, I can think of only one young broadleaf stand that is anywhere near decent. It's part of a much larger sitka plantation (about 47 hectares all in) and the native broadleaves have been planted on the steeper, wetter ground and the alder and cherry has done really quite well. I haven't looked at it in great detail, as I was there to tender on the spruce, but it's fine. The only other hardwood plantations that have had decent growth/form have been those with ash and the ash has died/is dying. The rest of the broadleaf plantations have been awful. I'm talking dozens of woodlands, hundreds of acres of stunted, squirrel ravaged bonsais. The difference is that when these older stands (that's we're presently harvesting for hardwood) were established, the grey squirrels weren't an issue. So they were able to establish. Until grey squirrels are irradicated, I can never counternance planting native broadleaves as a crop tree. It's either pointless, or extremely hard work.

Very interesting points, and I'm entirely in favour of continuous cover, if it's possible. I do do clearfells, but I don't like them. The issue is that the management regime of a woodland needs to be focused on CCF from the outset. You can't decide halfway through a cycle to then switch to CCF and expect it to stay standing. Fundamentally, trees grow best when in a micro-climate, sheltered from prevailing weather. CCF allows for new planting/regeneration to get it's best possible start, but at present the entire forestry model in the UK is plant > thin > thin > clearfell. As regards eucalyptus, CCF is very doable, but you're working on a much shorter timescale. Given that you can take nitens from planting to final crop in 12 years, intervention can be as often as every 2 years. Coup felling blocks and replanting, whilst still taking advantage of the micro climate is the way I'd do it. I can go into more detail....

All valiant and important projects, but it won't address the fact that we don't have enough standing timber to meet meet demand now, and we'll have even less in 5-10 years time as we start to see the negative affect of FC policy changing in the early 90's to promote the planting of broadleaves. So many of the restockings after conifer clearfell of the past 30 years have gone to broadleaf. That's taking productive land out of production for something that'll never make a crop.

Maybe, but SC isn't native either. Naturalised, but not native. And still susceptible to sweet chestnut blight, phytophthora ramorum and squirrel damage.

It won't be done though. Firstly, the UK is not a forestry nation. There is no recent history of growing decent quality hardwoods in anything other than trivial quantities. Keep in mind that our woodland cover hit it's all time low in 1919 at 5%, which in hardwood forestry terms is less than one cycle. Secondly, relying exclusively on government funding to make a project economically viable is something I personally feel uncomfortable about. As regards people caring deeply about forests, I'd counter that there are a great many people that don't understand forestry in this country. I came across a page on Facebook that had been set up to protest any and all forestry work in a woodland local to Scarborough. The woodland is managed by the Woodland Trust, and the author of the page was complaining about ancient woodland restoration (ie, the felling of conifers) and even tried to make a case for rhododendron! Another point worth considering is that harvesting is moving away from motor manual felling. A guy with a chainsaw is much more expensive (per tonne), at far greater risk of injury and ultimately the ground impact is higher on manual felling as (if you're in softwoods) the brash is spread about the site (rather than under the machine) and the forwarder has to drive further to pick up spread out products. I'm still proposing increasing the amount of broadleaf we have in the UK, but stating that it shouldn't be a focus for production and should be limited to difficult and unproductive ground.

The UK market will never change towards longer term forestry. Britain's defining characteristic is short-termism. Look at industry in general, even the way people treat jobs as 'CV builders' only doing 18-24 months in one position. Fundamentally, we don't grow good hardwoods here. Historically, perhaps we did, but that was when labour was incredibly cheap and land prices were much lower. An economic return on investment on hardwoods is virtually impossible, and certainly within the lifetime of the person planting it. It's all well and good talking about going back to a time of handmade goods, bespoke joinery and 150 year broadleaf forestry cycles but very few people are willing to sign up to that. Look at it this way. If you plant a 10 acre eucalyptus nitens plantation down here, in 10 years, you have a mature woodland of 25m plus trees, which you can enjoy as an amenity (and people do enjoy it - I've been canvassing the locals who walk the plantation I visit) and from which you can draw an ecomomic return. It's miles better than an arable field in terms of biodiversity and it provides an attractive landscape feature, as well as flood mitigation. If you were to plant a native broadleaf plantation, at 10 years you'd have a field of scrubby little 4-6m trees, no canopy cover andlong grass/brambles/bracken. You'd be starting out at the beginning of 30 years of grey squirrel control, you'd have pruning and later high pruning to undertake, tree tubes to remove and dispose of and absolutely no amenity value. You'd be committing yourself to years of work without every hoping to see a return from it. And you could be in a position (as so many are now) of putting all that work in only for it to be wiped out by something like ash dieback. Like it or not, long term forestry is a very tough proposition to sell. Trust me - part of my work is persuading landowners to plant new woodland. No one is interested because it doesn't make financial sense. Even shorter rotation crops are still a long term investment. The UK has limited space and should focus on what it is good at, which is growing timber very quickly. We can leave the higher quality timber production to the Europeans, who have a tradition of it, vastly more space to do it and for whom the trees grow perfectly with minimal intervention.

I refer to almost all houses in the UK as rabbit hutches. On a serious note, the houses are patently architecturally awful. The only redeeming feature of that I can see is the oak tree in the front garden. The house was purchased with the tree already standing in the garden - why buy the house if the intention is to fell the tree? Does my head in. Developers pack shitty little houses onto postage stamp sized plots, leave the odd token tree than invariably ends up getting felled when someone buys a house and doesn't like the tree.

No.

That seems a little harsh for a comment that was obviously tongue in cheek. However, my wife is an architect so it's not outside the realms of possibility 😊

Depressing to take a nice tree out like that that obviously pre-dates the shit-box rabbit hutch houses by about 100 years. Fell the house. Keep the tree 😎

I bought myself a bass at the start of lockdown. I used to play quite a bit until about 12-14 years ago. I just sold it again today as it just wasn't that interesting to play. In the intervening time I've learned to play piano (to a reasonable standard) and it's so much more versatile. I started out playing a lot of classical, but I often just sit at the keys now and work out songs that are floating around my head. It's quite nice to be able to do that - a means of expression that I wouldn't otherwise have if I didin't play an instrument

The chip price is pretty poor at the moment so as much as possible will be going for higher grade applications (fencing and milling). Keilder is a useful resource. What the hell else would they be using the land for if not farming trees? Sheep? That's about all you can do. As regards tourism, I'd always much rather see a plantation than moorland.

One of the main reasons that sitka is so popular is our climate. And for numerous reasons. Firstly, sitka grows quickly here. We don't get much of a winter, so their dormant season is very short indeed. Secondly, harvesting any timber in the UK is tricky. Due to our sometimes wet summers and almost never frozen winters, we lack the kind of ground integrity that is desirable for harvesting. As such, machinery needs to run on a brash mat and there is no finer mat than a sitka spruce mat. This allows harvesting to take place year round, which is ideal from a supply lines point of view. The conditions are generally far better for harvesting in France. Hot dry summers and a much better chance of frozen ground in winter. The illustrate the issue, I'm doing a little ash clearfell at the moment fairly close to home. We've had quite a lot of rain - certainly more than the average but not as much as last year. The site is almost completely flat, but I'm going to have to put bandtracks on tomorrow. Even with the little Logbullet forwarder, I'm just spinning out on the clay. There is no structure to the ground, boundless moisture and no brash. I'd much, much rather be doing sitka. This is just grim.

Ok, land ownership issues aside, here are the issues with broadleaf production in this country: Grey squirrels. They completely decimate crops, require expensive and often unpopular control measures Much more expensive to establish. More waste (tubes and stakes) compared to conifer. Growth rates are extremely slow Mostly cannot be mechanically harvested, so expensive and dangerous to convert from standing trees to usable milling material Horrendously inconsistent quality. Shake, rot and staining is a far more prevalent issue in hardwood Extremely limited market. How much hardwood is actually used on a day to day basis? Broadleaf production is of a much higher quality on the continent, without the issues of squirrels or having to constantly intervene with pruning, respacing, thinning in order to have a chance at a good tree. Can usually be mechanically harvested at a younger age. I visited a hardwood sawmill near my uncle's in Germany 7-8 years ago and they were able to sell kiln dried beech of excellent quality for a lower price than I could produce fresh sawn here. The fuelwood has a limited market as mostly unsuitable for chip production. Log production contributes to what is a largely polluting form of home heating (considering the fact that most customers don't know how to use stoves correctly, or have open fires). On the flipside, consider the benefits of conifer (leaving eucalyptus aside for a moment): Grows consistently and quickly Grows on sites where broadleaf production would be impossible (thinking of moorland) Mechanically harvestable at all stages, reducing costs by 1/2 - 2/3 and improving safety Much broader application possibilities. Construction, fencing, cladding, pallets, paper, tetra packs, furniture, fuelwood etc Biodiversity in mature stands (especially douglas and larch) equal to or exceeding equivilent age broadleaf. On a personal note, a mature conifer stand is something I find to be far more pleasant than a broadleaf woodland. Give me 120ft douglas and an understory any day. I can go on if you want

This is a British problem. Why can the rest of Europe manage to access and enjoy the outdoors without trashing it? Littering and vandalism is a depressingly British phenomenon. I agree that a small minority of the public take the piss, but on the flip side, if landowners were more amenable to respectful access rights, there would be less of an 'us and them' mentality and a lot more respect would be shown by everyone. That said, I still maintain that the death penalty for littering wouldn't be excessive. Perhaps not for the first offence, but it's got to be considered as a reasonable punishment

I don't disagree with any of that. Your issue is with the unequal distribution of wealth in the UK, not commercial forestry. I completely agree that these are huge issues. Land is not held in public ownership, nor is it held for public benefit. At least in Scotland you do have the right to roam. Most European countries have the right to roam in forest, and for the most part, have more equittable woodland ownership. Anyway, you've not answered my question, as you'd focused on the issue of quickly grown, commercial crops earlier, and now you've switched to land ownership. 😊

I was promised a full explanation of what is wrong with commercial forestry. Still waiting! 🤣 😝

That would be nice. It would help if developers stopped building on floodplains though.

The UK really needs to get to 30-35% forest cover and quickly in order to cover UK demand for timber. Almost all the other European countries manage to exceed that level. If I was in charge of these things (God help us all) then I'd consign 50% of all upland in England to commercial forestry. All the flat bits - everywhere that can be mechanically harvested. This would provide the UK with most of it's construction and higher grade commercial timber. Mix it up so that you have a spread of species for different applications - sitka, norway (which I agree, doesn't always grow well here), WRC, Japanese red cedar, douglas fir, western hemlock etc. Then consign the remaining 50% to biodiversity and rewilding. Whether that's natural moorland restoration, broadleaf forest restoration or what, it'd be an improvement on the shooting drives that are there now. The loss of income from the (largely unprofitable) shoots would be offset by timber income. And make the whole lot open access so people can enjoy it. And then look at farms at lower altitudes. So many of them exist only because of subsidies. They would be more profitable as eucalyptus, willow or poplar plantations. It'd give us a rapidly grown, sustainable biofuel that could be used in small scale district heating systems to heat houses, commercial properties and public spaces. Given that installation of gas boilers in new properties is illegal after 2025, biofuel district heating ought to be considered. It's unsustainable for the UK to continue importing 80% of it's timber. Reforestation is a complicated and multifaceted strategy that needs to take into account the complex nature of UK timber need. That being said, fast grown species will always form the backbone of it as the UK does not grow quality timber due to the climate. What we do do is grow timber very quickly.

That is not what I am suggesting. Unfortunately, with the nature of your work, you only see the broadleaf side of the sawmilling market. Please recognise that it's a tiny, tiny part of the UK timber industry. I supply Pontralis Sawmills pretty regularly with softwood. They use 1200 tonnes of softwood a day, and even with that level of production, the UK imports 80% of it's timber products. Commercial forestry in the UK is still nowhere near the level required to fulfill our domestic needs. We need much more of the useless and barren uplands planted with conifer to provide high quality timber for construction and we need to plant some of our arable lowlands with rapidly growing species such as eucalyptus to provide a source of woodfuel and cellulose. I am not proposing to reduce the amount of native broadleaf woodland. I would actually propose increasing it, but on commercially unviable ground. This can be grant funded as required, but without the expectation of obtaining a crop out of it. I've seen a lot of plantations since coming down here, planted 20 odd years ago , where the softwood element beautiful and already profitable for it's first thin but the broadleaf aspect is completely useless. It'll never make a crop of any description, having been ravaged by squirrels, ash dieback, poor seed provenance (ie, poor form) or deer damage. What exactly do you regard as being the problem with commercial UK forestry?