oakashalder

Thanks all. That seems quite unanimous and conclusive. Is there any real prospect of control? If you remove some squirrels from an area, don't more just move in straight away?

As mentioned in the "sycamore dieback" thread, I am seeing this problem on members of the maple family, mostly: field maple, norway maple and sycamore. There is one occurence on ash, though, as in the attached image, and I'm looking nervously at some bark cracking on some alder. The images "on field maple_2" and "on sycamore" show the narrow ribboning of the peeling outer bark. Has anyone else seen this or know anything about it? I looked at images of sooty bark and they don't match this.

I am currently having a problem with all the trees in the maple family --sycamore, norway maple and field maple-- due to something that's eating the bark. A fungus, surely. I will post pictures tomorrow, but the outer bark is peeling off in narrow strips and the inner layers are then retreating from that infection to expose the wood below. Although the bark loss mostly spreads vertically, it does also widen and will effectively ring-bark branches or even the entire trunk.

I have the same problem with hawthorn on my acre-and-a-half plantation in Wales, which is nowhere near a road or any other possible source of air pollution. I think it may be related to a problem I described in a reply to "lime problem" a little way up the thread. I don't believe it is fireblight as there are no other symptoms of that, such as bleeding and cankers. One of my hawthorns healed itself, putting out new growth from low down on the trunk. Another, that I cut back to better-looking growth myself, took umbrage and died. As I said in that other post, I think it is bacterial and weather (humidity) exacerbated. I don't have any useful advice, but you might look into the acidity of the soil.

I recognise these leaf symptoms from a problem I have on my acre-and-a-half native plantation in Wales, though I'm afraid I can't put a name to it. I suspect it is some form of bacterial infection with an insect vector. I have lost a number of hazel and silver birch. It takes one or two years for the tree/shrub to die, with no new growth and die-back along the branches. Even if there are leaf buds, the next year's leaves are likely to be dessicated and undersized. However, some plants survive, though they probably act as hosts. It seems to depend on how readily the tree surrenders its leaves as to whether it survives or not. If it holds onto them, the multiplying bacteria can enter and choke the vascular system. I have to stress that this is non-professional theory only, garnered from observation and reading around. I sent samples off for analysis but they couldn't identify anything. My only remedy so far has been to prune well back from infected leaves in the hope of preventing whatever it is from getting down into the wood. Last winter I did also give quite a heavy application of lime around the most susceptible trees, which does seem to have slowed it a bit. Other than that, my stock of small firewood grows.

At the high end, I suppose, but not out of range. Some of the tracts for sale through other agents, such as the one you suggested, are similarly priced. The factors affecting price seem to be (in descending order): acreage, access, maturity of timber, terrain.

£4.5k/acre, but now Ty Unnos has given me a link to some better looking properties, a couple in your area. I may well take you up on that offer once I've got myself sorted.

This is a truly valuable forum! Thank you so much for this link. I agree they do look better value.

Odd how appealing that idea is! I probably shouldn't have used the word "investment". It's not that I want to make money from it, only that it hold its value against the need to one day sell it again, not having pensions and things like that. I do like it. It has a river --well, a stream, but it warrants a name-- at the foot of the slope and I had thought of a stepped path down to it as a way of adding a bit of amenity value. But having very little to play with, I do need to at least try to be a bit hard-headed.

Which is what I wanted, thanks. The configuration of the site --very long and narrow-- wouldn't warrant some of that heavy equipment, and the timber was spruce and red cedar, but I'm sure you're right about it not being economic.

Thank you for your reply. I am in south west Wales, not too far from Cardigan, so I've been looking in this area. There are a couple of companies specialising in the sale of small woodlands and this is one of theirs. I take your point about the lack of amenity in a steep slope, though the maintenance would be light as there's no undergrowth whatever --just tree! I have visited a couple of other sites on more level ground and they have looked like a lot of work to renovate and maintain. None of them had any degree of canopy at all, and all had a lot of scrubby growth. I understand we're supposed to call that "natural regeneration", but pretty impenetrable as far as amenity goes. Resale value is my primary concern, though the allowance for firewood would be useful, and at age 65 I don't know how much 'long-term' I can take into account. I'd like to hear more about your experience as regards looking for- and looking after- small woodland. Not too far off-topic in ARB I hope.

Hi, I'm not a professional arborist, I'm thinking of buying a tract of woodland in Wales and wondering how well it might hold its value. It seems to me the value depends on some owner, at some time, being able to extract and sell the wood, and folk here will probably be able to say something about that. It's a 10 acre site on a very steep slope --a climb, not walkable. It's narrow, with a central track, the slopes varying from, say, 40 to 70 yards either side of the track. The trees on it are norway spruce and red cedar in a range of sizes. I estimate the largest to be around 20 metres tall, half a meter in diameter, but that's an uneducated guess. The track is in good order, with turning/storage bays. The questions in my mind are: is the terrain likely to make it more expensive to fell and extract the timber than the timber would ever be worth? How is the value of such trees estimated, and by who? Part of the slope runs alongside an A road, so would a felling licence even be granted, given the possibility of landslip, etc? Some here, from their experience, may think of other issues. I wouldn't actually want to cut any trees, apart from just maintenance. I mostly want to get a sense of whether I could re-sell it at a later date as a viable concern. Any opinions and feedback welcomed.