Crazy Cutter

I am 100% telling you it's part seasoned sycamore. Why is it likely to be horse chestnut in a wood? It's the reason I gave up asking questions you get 200 million different answers.

It's sycamore far better than the oak or ash.

Kevin I would love to and is something I have thought about alas I'm not going to have the time. I have tried and failed to find information from the continent. A learned friend has foresters in Sweden who have ash recovering but details are sketchy. I took the time to read Ash by Rackham at the weekend and his information on the disease is now well out of date. It's rampant here with many dead trees including veterans. I do wonder if we have a different strain or climate maybe. 2014 has brought widespread reinfection with many woodland trees 75% dead. The Latvians suggest felling at 50% so many trees are past that. On a safety note I do not see how trees that are 50 to 75% dead can recover enough to be left up? Rackham states that in Estonia he saw few dead trees which is at odds with what's happening in Norfolk.

Move away from contract felling, find a niche be good at it, I have and now have taken on two others to keep up with demand. I am now being asked to fell for the forwarder but I set the price, it will happen for you don't despair. CCF forestry will move forestry away from harvesters as it has done in France. I pay our whole mortgage now and the wife drives a Ferrari!

A lot of forestry work is now mechanised, leaving not much scope. I've worked for nothing when things have gone wrong we all have. It's trying to not be loaded with debt and overheads. I juggle the contracting,surgery and the firewood. All kit I try to fund through saving from one of them! But the most important thing I've found to keep the work and to stand out from the crowd is the presentation of the site at the end of the job.

Is there not a big difference between a self employed faller with own kit compared to a farm hand or am l missing something?

I think we are all talking the same language on this one. I am a faller firstly because I love the job, now 20 years into it I am looking to earn money from it! I am not interested in harvesters and fancy kit just doing a damn good job. Always striving still to improve my felling cuts, I just see that as professional. I remember the heli logger series for showing what professional safe work should be. It is improving here, mainly because people simply don't want to be doing it. How often are you told 'I used to be in the tree game? Well it's not a game to me must more than that, what I do today affects those in the future.

Ditto I started on small river alder if you felled it in the river you went in after it also it was piecework, not many will do that today. I was talking to my barber yesterday he's been struggling to find someone now for five years it goes across all industries.

So if we average out at 45 a day that's roughly 900 a month before your wage. For where I am you need to be returning 25k profit to be considered for a mortgage. As a good cutter I would say you need to be turning over 50k a year to fix the broken and invest in new saws which with modern computer don't last longer than two years. And why shouldn't we for too long forestry and tree work has been seen as lower class and paid with no respect unlike abroad. Ash dieback will see experienced fallers in high demand. I can also see the casualty rate soar, ash is always a nasty one and there are going to be people way out of their depth.

We are working through woods that are now 75% dead. With the babies highly infected as well. Going back to cutting at 2 foot this is the height the stools end up when felled with an axe, each coppice getting higher until it was a called a soldier stool. Tabor in his experience suggests cutting back level with the ground as the regrowth is straighter. Ash was grown on a 15 to 25 rotation for hurdles so usually would be straight by then anyway. But remember the good old days did not have any deer browsing and rabbits were wiped out in the fifties and before that far better controlled.

Forget it, waste of time. This month we have started operations to clear fell ash woods.

Couldn't possibly comment on who I feel it maybe!?! Am working on one at the moment have refused to do around half of it and a second survey is now being carried out. Really am struggling with the whole arb world stuff now, it's losing its way in a mess of litigation, tree safety and money making. How on earth do we all function in the past? Personally I think you need a real grounding in watching trees before you should commit yourself to survey work.

We used to do a lot of clearing saw work in young plantations. The clearing saw has a shorter pole so easier to cut on the angle to direct the stem. One handed use as well so you can hold the tree you are cutting. Stihl and Husqvarna have vary good publications on best practice. The chainsaw blade is sharpened using a round chainsaw file cut high to keep out of the dirt. In my experience a clearing saw is very good on coppice, it will deal with big trees, you can cut a felling cut with it, but with everything it will take practice.

The multi stemmed oak has been headed back I guess in the nursery or has been eaten off then regrown. It makes no difference to straightness it's how close they are together and whether usually they have a nurse species growing with them. Also as said provenance and whether the oak you have bought like the soil two parents growing on sand will not produce children that like clay. That said the FC is now recommending planting trees from North France as those being planted now are not going to enjoy the warmth in 140 years time.

My mistake soft 90.00 hard 110.00 both per cubic metre after air. Per bundle half cubic metre after air so 45.00 and 55.00. 1.7 to 2 m3 makes 4 m3 loose split logs.

I sell softwood billets at 45.00 delivered and hardwood at 55.00 delivered per cubic metre. A bundle holds half a cube after 50% air allowance. The customer ends up getting 25% more wood this way compared to loose split loads. Usually sell more soft than hard as am pushing soft more and more. Quite frankly the quicker burning is just crap.

The photo shows chalara tree trying to callus over damage, multiple epicormics coming from above and below which are also infected. Trees have good and bad years with this disease, I do not believe the letter too much Port whilst out hunting.

Fair play to everyone with which way they proceed with their businesses but forestry/firewood seems to be heading the same way as agriculture it's got to be BIG! I think that's a bad thing, woods operate in a totally different way over a very long time and it now seems without any Gov support for planting. I foresee a real battle developing for wood in five to ten years it's just not sustainable.

I too have customers who are adamant that kiln dried burn't too quick even though the mc was the same as my air dried. I have read a paper somewhere that kiln drying changes the chemical make up of the wood so burns quicker, certainly Douglas is stronger when kiln dried. I feel there maybe something in this as people are so certain that kiln dried burns quick.

I buy all my wood by m3. It depends how well it is stacked and species. It rough bent stuff then you will ask for a higher air %. I find that 1.7m3 after air gives 4m3 of loose split logs 10".

The rings on our trees suggest infection in 2002 but have only showed signs within the last five years. Quite frankly the fc map is well off and they don't have enough qualified staff or staff in general. This does not need testing for you can see it. The Cranbourne trees were the standard trees in coppice woodland. The thinning crown will be the first thing you see not infection of small trees. My concern is the apathy regarding this everyone bangs on about how bad Dutch elm was but this is so much bigger. It's also the fact that trained tree surgeons are missing it, come on this is our field this what we all do yet I'm regularly told 'I'm just not seeing it anywhere'! The only trees that will survive this are the resistant ones which show no signs to the un- trained eye we are on the hunt to try and find one.

This was Cranbourne trust me I have got my eye in now can spot a tree with one bud out of place. The Danes had told the manager the same the week before I did. Gary Battell from Suffolk CC has done a very good doc on this worth a look.

Next to a road the reports I work under always state fell even when fungus is in its infancy as tree has no future.

Sorry having all sorts problems getting the photos over. I have them in an album in my profile but getting tired now!

Ash with chalara (advanced form of coppicing!?!) Sorry if this has been covered before but this is now so big within Norfolk....... A lot of you have this to come this tree is another mature roadside ash we felled today. Anyone within this country who has work to do on ash should really question whether they should leave it for a few years as 9 times out of 10 the work carried out will be a waste of time and money. I can say I haven't seen a healthy ash here for years and I'm guessing a 90% death rate as in Denmark. A visit to Dorset in October was not good for me as all the signs were present. Thin crowns are usually the first sign very noticeable in Wessex, but also a mass of epicormics within the crown so it looks overcrowded can be the other extreme. Canker on the buds is now this year becoming very noticeable as the tree tries to heal itself. Many trees have twisted growth where the disease entered last summer. The tips will wilt and flatten before bud burst as though the life is being sucked out of the branch. Some trees particularly young ones have a huge primary bud which doesn't burst causing a fork. Growth on semi mature trees is only one to two inches per shoot with much epicormics. The wood over the years as the tree dies turns black as it rots usually with a stink and is not saleable as firewood. This is big yet so under estimated!