Ambisawrous

First post on here,and I've enjoyed reading through this thread. I have some unmanaged woodland on the farm here, about 30 acres in 4 woods which are all quite different. I've not really thought much about the woodland until recently, we just cut up enough fallen timber to satisfy our own firewood requirements. We have had a few wind blown trees last winter, more than I can use myself so thought it would be good to sell some firewood as its all good quality oak, ash and beech. We still have quite a bit to get out including a huge beech which is hooked up at the moment. This has all got me thinking to try to actively manage the woods. One wood I think is ancient woodland so this may possibly be best left alone. Another is half old hazel coppice that hasn't been touched for a long time and half mature beech(some are huge), oak, cherry etc(really need to learn more on the different tress). Hoping to coppice the hazel aiming for maybe 1 in 8 rotation. Another wood has a lot of oak in an this is the one which I am least sure about. A lot of the oak is around 18-24' size, and they are pretty tall so I think should be high quality. I would like to use this wood for milling for projects round the farm, which I have plenty of. Also have a cabinet maker in a business unit on the farm which could come in handy! I would like to manage the wood for the long term and plan is to do a small woodland management plan and get felling licence. I have spoken to Forestry Commission and chap seemed to think I could get a thinning licence easily. Just wondering if thinning the oaks is going to be sufficient to allow remaining trees to grow further or are they too large/tall already and maybe small amounts of clear felling and replacement over a number of years would be better? I don't want to clear fell large areas, but equally it would be a shame not to use this oak if it is prime grade. Am also considering a mobile mill if we are able to extract enough justify it as I think we can utilize a lot ourselves in replacing oak framing on some buildings, new porch for farmhouse that is shot, new floorboards, lots of feather edge required, oak post and rail and I have a keen youngster working on the farm with Cs 30,31 and I could start offering mobile milling services. We are in AONB and might be able to get a grant for equipment for small scale extraction/milling. Anyway I'm rambling now, if any ine has any thoughts I'm all ears...

Hi all, I'm from farming background, just started selling a bit of firewood from fallen trees from 30 acres woodland mainly oak and ash and looking to start actively managing it so hope get some good info from here. Cheers Ambisawrous.