Big J

I did wonder if it was a bit too quickly grown to be aspen. But then neither myself or the forestry manager (more experienced than me) could quite put our finger on what it was. I'll get photos. I did some quick calculations/projections on the basis of the final crop at 25 years being half the volume of what I'm seeing in this stand (trying to err on the side of caution) and it worked out that starting with your first thin at 7 years, thinning every 3 years and clearfelling at 25 years, you should be able to profit (after harvesting costs) £1700/hectare per year (not including planting costs). Given that farmland is around £15k/hectare around here, it's quite a good rate of returns, especially considering there is no replanting cost as it coppices so readily. That said, I'd need to confirm the precise growth rates as the trees I've seen on site are so far beyond the size of any normal forestry tree species, they don't fit in any yield class chart I've seen.

We're working a primarily larch site at the moment which has a strip of stunted spruce at the foot of the hill. The spruce is being 80-90% removed as the hybrid poplar species (I think, possibly aspen, need confirmation) that is planted amongst the spruce absolutely towers over it. The whole plantation is 30 years old. The larch has done quite well, averaging 0.4 cube or a touch over, at 60ft height. The spruce has been suppressed so is only about half that size, but the poplar (same planting year) averages about 3-4 cube, 100ft + tall and some trees are nudging 6-7 cube. It has also grown with perfect form and would fly through a (very large) harvester head. They had to clearfell the neighbouring block due to the poplar towering over the spruce, and them being unable to get the poplar out without smashing the softwood. The funny thing is that all of the poplar stumps have regenerated and even the brash from the poplar has rooted and is growing with great gusto. That operation was done 2 years ago, and the douglas fir that has been replanted is only 2ft tall and the poplar is over 12ft or more, and that's with efforts by the forestry management company to kill it. This epic growth rate and relentless determination to not be killed off has got my brain cogs going and I'd love to establish a little plantation block with the stuff. I'll get some photos of the trees next week for species confirmation, but has anyone planted a poplar plantation for biomass and what sort of growth rate did they achieve? This particular strain seems to be way off the charts as regards normal yield class. A 60cm DBH tree at 100ft just isn't normal for 30 years old.

I completely agree Steve, and you did a great job with that. It's not the easiest to work though, and you need the clean, knot free first length to realise anything of quality.

No. That's western red cedar. True cedars aren't commercially grown in the UK, and whilst they might be suitable for hobby production, they aren't commercially viable.

It's a nice stick, not 5 tonnes, but big enough. Value wise, it's not worth much I'm afraid. When I ran the sawmill I would have offered to pick it up for free to clear the site, but the cost of the HIAB is going to be as much as the log is worth. I had a bit of Deodar cedar through the yard over the years and it's lovely when it's good quality, but it fractures easily around knots and is quite brittle. It's ideal for oversized garden furniture, due to it's durability, but not much demand other than drawer boxes beyond that.

It's only 3m long and not that girthy. Fairly straight though and would make excellent posts. Could easily do a lorry load.

That is very cheap, especially considering the proximity of the biomass plant at Sandwich. Stick £10/t on it and it'd still fly out.

For me, the biggest draw of electric vehicles is their performance. I honestly can't wait for widespread electric vans and trucks. 3, 4 or 500bhp, maximum torque from zero, no shifting down when towing 3.5t up a steep hill as you've no gears and with that much torque, I doubt you'd notice the hill. And then get home in the evening and hook it up to your house to recharge, where you'd ideally have some sort of renewable to discount that. I am looking forward to it

No woodland management plan required, or indeed wildlife survey (though precautions need to be taken, visual inspections before felling). Restocking is required though. There is a woodland plan going in for the remaining 150 acres, but this ash strip is being done as a matter of urgency, so is being applied for separately.

A few photos of the trees from today, to illustrate size, situation and dieback. 185 trees or thereabouts. Some very large (4-5 cube), but most in the 1-2 cube range. Around 400 cube all in I think. We'll get the felling licence done this evening, so anticipate removal in August.

I'm very sorry to hear about your mother. As regards the ash, it's not great. It's pretty similar to a batch that we sold in January. The best of the batch went out at £75-78/t and the second grade (which was similar to yours) £65/t.

Ordinarily, I'd agree. In other woodlands, we make every effort to retain ash and fell affected trees only. The difficulty here is that the space is so restricted that it's a fell them all or don't fell any sort of situation. Given that the footpath is reasonably busy, leaving them standing isn't an option. Additionally, we can just about cover out costs if we do the lot (it's a 3/4 mile haul up a steep slope, with a total height gain of exactly 100m, and the felling is quite technical) but if we have to pick through, it could prove very expensive for the land owner, and we might well have to just clearfell next year anyway when the majority of the rest die. I'm there first thing in the morning, so I'll take some photos to illustrate the issue.

Every tree there is in range of the footpath. Most are directly above it. 25m trees on a 15-30m wide strip with the footpath in the middle. Going to site first thing in the morning and the licence application will be in tomorrow afternoon I'll be intrigued to hear what the Euroforest consensus on is.

Due to the length of the extraction route and given that most of the timber is firewood, there isn't the money in the job to allow topping out. Also, I don't know too many tree surgeons prepared to climb dead ash. I just got off the phone with the woodland officer for our patch and she said to get the licence in and she'll fast track it in 5-6 weeks. This is ideal as it works well for the gap in the diary that we have to do it.

I can't say that I disagree, certainly not in principle. It's a tough sell though as there aren't too many of us out there that aren't going to work hard in order to give our kids (and their kids) the best start in life. Selfish desire to look after one's own trumps utilitarian philosophies!

Sadly that's only just a touch more than the average house price around here (which stands at £290k). Combine that with any other assets you might have and the government will get their pound of flesh, sure enough.

Had an interesting job come in today. As part of a much larger woodland, there is a strip of about 3 acres of densely grown, massively overdrawn ash, sitting at the foot of a deep valley. It's a long strip, perhaps 400m long and 25-30m wide, though only 10-15m of it is flat. The access to get the ash out isn't too bad, as decent (albeit steep) tracks exist. In terms of space to fell the timber, there is very little, with a steep bank on one side and a river on the other. Quite a few would require winching, and it's not easy work. The woodland is fairly advanced in terms of chalara fraxinea, and around 30% of the trees are dead (with some looking like they died last year). A further 20-30% are in sharp decline, and the remainder are OK at present. The issue is that of all of the trees in this 150 acre woodland, this is the only place with ash. And as luck would have it, it's the only place there is a public footpath, which is directly below the trees. The woodland owner is justifiably very concerned about the liability of having 90ft ash standing dead above the general public and would like them removed quickly. I spoke to one of the local woodland officers with regards to the stand, and whilst the dead and dying trees would not require a felling licence, the trees still alive would. The issue is that there is no space to fell anything, and the only safe way to do it is to fell the lot. Attempting to squeeze dead trees through narrow gaps between live trees is going to result in a lot of hangers, and given the brittle nature of dead ash, none of my cutters are going to entertain that idea. The woodland officer suggested that perhaps an arboricultural survey prior to felling (as opposed to a felling licence) might be an acceptable way to go. With 95% of the trees likely to die on that strip (it's almost entirely ash) and the only safe way to remove them being clearfell, there isn't much of an alternative. I think it would be most sensible to get them down in September/October, which given the switchover to online felling licences means it would be very tight on timescale. What would you do in this situation? It's not a desperately easy job, with big technical felling required (with quite a lot of winch assistance). It's one that does urgently need to be done, as it's on a site extremely close to the local epicentre of ash dieback and the trees are quite far gone. Do I put the licence application in and wait or commission a tree safety survey and get it done a bit sooner?

But necessary. God only knows what would happen to the place if we started complimenting each other ('s looks). Best to nip it in the bud!

The intention is to build the forestry harvesting and management company over the next 20 years or so and then sell up, either as a going concern or simply component parts (machines). In a few years we're intending to start a sustainable building company, focusing on the provision of low cost, high quality, carbon negative housing built empathetically in conjunction with support from local communities. They would be price controlled, mainly for key workers (emergency services, care workers, teachers etc) and people working in the locality as part of the rural economy. We'd tee this into the forestry business by restarting a sawmill to provide the raw materials for the houses, with the aim to have 90% (or more) of the structure of the house to come from a 50-100 mile radius. Modular, prefabricated, locally grown houses with an emphasis on healthy internal environments and sensible and considered development planning (so folk don't feel like sardines in a can, jammed into little rabbit hutches as is the case with so many new developments). The hope is 15-20 years of that would result in us doing larger and larger developments, making a meaningful contribution to the local housing stock and eventually provide us with a decent pension to retire on. Life would be a damn sight easier if I just stuck to doing one thing, but I'm only happy plotting and master planning for the future! ?

I can say categorically that I owe a significant chunk of my business to you Steve. I've got long term customers (8 years plus) that I met through Arbtalk, have found the bulk of my sub contractors on here and have learned a huge amount from other contributors too. Hats off good sir ?

Apologies for the crappy photos, but the big machine is now here. Not exactly low impact, but still technically a thinnings machine! I'll have to wait to get started on it until next week though as the site is really wet, especially after the 5 inches of rain we've had in the past week.

To echo Andrew, it's a lot of experience and qualification for the money offered. I'm not saying that the salary isn't reasonable, only that £30k doesn't go very far these days, or come close to freelance/self-employed rates for a similar role.