Wood Fuel Market.

 Wood Fuel Market.

I own and manage a small wood, so I am sometimes asked if I sell fire wood. The simple answer is No. I could do as a result of the general management potential fire wood is generated. Producing fuel for my two log stoves is viable. There is a lot more than I can sensibly fell, as the woods develop this will increase. 
Without specialist equipment splitting and cutting logs is a long hard slow process. The specialist equipment is too  expensive for a small producer. That is before the costs of delivering to potential customers is considered.
The final disincentive  is The Air Quality (Domestic Solid Fuels Standards) (England) Regulations 2020. This is to ensure a minimum amount of particulates is produced on burning, by ensuring that wood fuel has a moisture content no more than 20%. To sell into the retail market, an amount less than 2 cubic meters, the seller needs to be audited and registered. This costs £507.60 the first year and £385.20 inc. vat in subsequent years. This removes any financial incentive there might have been for managing a small wood. Registering to supply biomass to people on the Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI) is a more modest £144 but says nothing about the quality of the fuel. Most RHI receivers use chip or pelleted wood. Like much modern timber technology there does not appear to be a sufficient supply to justify a large production plant. I can't find a commercial pellet producer in England. It is undeniable that burning damp wood is bad for air quality and should be discouraged. Is taking locally grown fuel out of the economy, to be replaced by imports of wood or gas any better for the environment?
I shall continue to manage my woods to a high standard. This is a luxury  I can afford in terms of time, being retired. Stacks of rotting wood does seem a shame. Selling to a large wholesaler would be a possibility, but they would have the costs of collection on top of all the costs I would have. They are used to Forestry Commission thinnings or imported containers, and not interested in an odd lorry load.  Then having to store dry and deliver, hardly an attractive proposition. It remains to be seen whether the rise in gas prices transfers into the wood fuel market. If it does will that increase domestic production or imports?

Not Every Good Idea is that Good.

Not Every Good Idea is that Good.

In the post Potting on Part II, I described having to improvise some containers for potting on into. I had not planted out the trees in the containers I had intended using due to the dry weather.

A few went into "compostable" disposable pint clear cups, some into muslin ones and 30 into Cardboard rolls.

   The card was just rolled up and the shape retained by plastic grids that were designed to hold small square plant pots. The idea, with all the compostable pots, was that the whole lot could be planted. The card once wetted very soon started to go mouldy. Grey and orange fungus spread all over the lower parts. 

 The muslin pots looked good, The potting on had been done during dry weather and the pots were in solid trays to reduce watering. These filled up when the rain came and the bottoms became saturated. While the pots looked o.k. as soon as they were moved the bottoms fell apart. The trees were still alive but had not grown as well as their contemporaries in solid pots.

Most of these trees in disintegrating pots were prioritised for planted before the New Year.     

The idea that planting the whole pot would be possible and that  it would rot in the soil proved feasible.  They did rot but before planting was attempted. If the tree in the muslin pot, in the picture on the is was lifted the bottom half of the pot and its soil  stays in the tray. The cardboard tubes collapsed side ways when they were moved so had to be planted before there was the thought of photographing them.

The trees in commercial compostable "plastic " pint pots will be planted later. previous experience suggests that they can be left a long time. 

Pit wood felling reading for planting

 Pit Wood Felling  and Readying for Planting.

Aspen, the straighter and lighter trunks, and Alder trees before area was cleared. 
 

It is New Years day (2022). In Pit Wood rectangular compartment the Aspen and Alder have been felled. The small area is to be replanted with Douglas Fir and Oak.  The logs have been piled at the end of rows adjacent to the ride. The brash has been piled in row gaps at ride side to prevent deer access. This has become more critical as 6 deer were seen in the next field. Usually it is only one or two.

Part of the area after clearing. The conifers are replacements for trees that died.
 The larger ones are Douglas Fir and Japanese Red Cedar.
 

A felled area.

Some of the brash was chipped so there were clear areas to fell into. Once a few rows had been felled it was possible to fell onto those rows. The aspen has grown very straight and it is comparatively easy to persuade them to fall in a particular direction. The Alder grew less quickly and had to chase the light more. Most did lean in the same direction and determined the direction and order the trees were felled.

The Dead Hedge.

Much of the first brash was woven into a "dead hedge" along a side with the rest of the wood. The stumps of the felled trees were used as posts. The felled trees had been planted at 3 x 1.5 metre spacing. The 3m gap edges were too wide to weave effectively. Brash particularly tops were piled up to prevent deer coming in. Logs filled in some of the gaps, adjacent to to the perimeter ride to stop the deer, and allow their removal. The deer would have no difficulty jumping the height of the logs but they would not try because of the width. Round logs would also act like a cattle grid. (I hope).

Logs and brash piled up to keep the deer out.

I tend to always fell at waist or chest level. If a tree doesn't fall where it is expected then I would rather be standing up.  Also if a tree is not straight then it may give you a better chance of allowing the tree to fall naturally in a pre determined direction. I had always intended leaving the stumps around the perimeter to make a deer fence, but am going to leave them all. I hope they will provide some shelter to the growing trees and should produce coppice growth providing extra shelter and increasing the humidity for the new trees. They will be small enough to be removed in the next few years without difficulty. When I think they are interfering with the new trees they can go. I also don't have to find something to do with them in the mean time!

Starting to Replant at Cairn Wood.

Starting to Replant at Cairn Wood. Nov 2021

There has been enough rain to start planting. As November has started there should be no risk of the soil drying out. A certain amount of work had gone into digging holes to take the trees about a month before. (Blog post Oct 9th 21) This made extending the depth of the holes much easier and the clay that came out broke up much more readily. There is only a small area being replanted where Ash are dead or dying. The few healthy Downey Birch and Hornbeam are being left, while the Italian alder and Aspen are being pollarded. This gives the new trees some shelter while they can have plenty of light. Ash that are not dead are being left. They will probably be dead in a couple of years with Ash Die Back, any that survive  deserve to have their genes in the next generation.

The area being planted. The stumps are Alder most of the other trees
 that can be seen are dead and dying Ash.

The area had been planted in the winter of 2009/10. It was shallowly subsoiled in 2008 but is the lowest part of the wood next to the stream, and appears to be the least productive area. Eucalyptus rodwayi and London Plane are going in. They are from seeds sown the previous winter, and transplanted into plastic containers with a capacity just under a litre. The hope is that they can get some root growth before the soil gets too cold.

The E. rodwayi have been grown in cones that thread had been wound round. They make a deep and narrow root space. The planting holes are made an inch or so deeper than the "pot" then a trowel's worth of real soil added, and worked in with the trowel. The soil is also worked into slits in the sides of the hole to give the roots a way into the clay. 

The London Planes have lost their leaves, but may put on a
 bit more root growth. They have been grown on in cut down fizzy drink bottles. There is a difficult balancing act, between firming in and compacting the soil making it so compact that the roots can't penetrate into it to make them wind firm and collect water and minerals.

In the picture there is a little bit of grey clay in the pile on the left of the "pot". This is a lime rich small lens in the red clay. Below the red clay it forms  a slatey limestone the Blue Lias. I think how well the clay drains depends on depth to the Blue Lias as moles and earthworms cannot make holes in it. Encouragingly I feel that planting here is easier now than when I first planted here 12 years ago. There is more dark soil at the surface formed from the leaves of the trees and weeds that have grown in the mean time. There are the roots of the original trees which will help with the drainage.  It will be interesting to see how the new trees cope.

Christmas Trees

 Christmas Trees.

Our Christmas tree

Many conifers are used as Christmas Trees. In the U.K most are Norway Spruce or Nordmann Fir. Both are native to Europe. The Norway spruce, the Christmas tree introduced by Prince Albert, occurs naturally in Northern and Eastern Europe and in the Alps, but not in the U.K. The Nordmann Fir is a tree of the mountains of Turkey and the Caucasus, hence its alternative name the Caucasian Fir.

A Nordmann Fir 
Pruned by the deer.

The reason they are the most common is that they are the most readily available. Norway Spruce is an important commercial tree, so is available in large numbers. It is fast growing though for the Christmas tree market the leader needs to be trimmed back or there will be too much trunk between branches. Being a Spruce is very not suitable as a cut tree in dry centrally heated houses. The needles dry out die and drop off. The Nordmann Fir being a fir holds its needles even when they are dead. This makes it a more suitable indoor tree. The disadvantage with it is that it is slow growing, taking about twice as long as Norway to reach 6ft. The reason Nordmann is the most available Fir, when there are many faster growing ones. Is that the new leaves flush fairly late in the spring after most frosts, so in the U.K. there are not too many losses, or trees that need pruning to keep straight.  

I have both Norway Spruce and Nordmann Fir at Pit Wood, and could find ones that were a suitable size. I didn't have a Nordmann that hadn't been mauled by the rabbits/hares/deer. One thing I have learnt is that Fir is synonymous with fodder. The Norway Spruce have been planted to form a wind break in years to come.

 We have a Japanese Red Cedar as our "real" tree, a more open and droopy tree than most. It is the top six feet of one that was being removed to give space to neighbouring Douglas Fir that have timber potential.  It is the middle of the three trees in the picture. The Douglas on either side are now shading it so it will become increasingly stunted. The Douglas will have more light now it has gone.  

Cairn Wood History Part III

Cairn Wood History Part III.

By the spring of 2010 it was obvious that many of the trees were struggling with the conditions. Presumably the heavy clay "soil". The  areas at either end of the field which had been planted with saplings from the garden, because throwing them out seemed wrong, and these were areas which could not be subsoiled. It was  mainly Oaks with a few Silver Birch, they had grown quite well. The Silver Birch were out performing the Downey Birch I had planted, though the later were supposed to do better in damp conditions. Oak and silver birch would be planted.  

Initially, I had decided not to make Oak a  significant part of the plantings, because everybody with a small wood was planting Oak for environmental feel good reasons. I wanted my woods to be productive. By 2010 I was realising the difference in timber quality between commercial and environmentally managed woods. Oak for timber and timber generally moved up the priority list.

For the winter 2010 planting season a strip along the A1 side had been cleared and subsoiled. I elected to plant Silver Birch, Oak and Western Red Cedar the conifer which I thought would do best on the slightly alkaline soil. Ash regen from the field were also fitted in. A clear vehicle wide strip would be needed to enable the hedge to be cut and left by the A1. A row of Hazel bordered the strip, this was to to make it simple to keep the area clear for a tractor. 

  As well as changing my planting priorities I started negotiating for  7 acres on the Trent flood plain. I had been made redundant, but was retained as a casual. The income hit was not too great and the redundancy payment more than paid for the mixed area that was to be Pit Wood.
  The winter of 2010/11 proved a real challenge. 300 bare rooted Oak and Silver Birch were delivered on the last Friday in October. 50 were panted on the Saturday. There was a hard frost Sunday night and the frost on the ground, certainly where the sun didn't reach, remained until January.  The unplanted trees had their roots covered in soil in the garden, heeled in as it is known. They were eventually planted in January.

That winter saw two nights reach -18 C and two separate weeks when the temperature didn't get above Zero. Planting went on into April. By June it was apparent that there was no growth on the Eucalypts, some of which were 20 foot high. I had always thought some species were vulnerable  but looking at temperature records I thought most would survive. The heavy clay meant that roots were shallow and restricted, as Eucalypts do not have a dormant period they require water all through the year. The winter here was colder than 1946/7 and without the insulating effect of snow soil temperatures will have been unprecedented. 

It wasn't until the end of July that some basal shoots had formed on some of the 3/4 year old Eucalypts. A few E. rodwayi from 2008 also showed signs of life. A couple of hundred Eucalypts I was growing from seed in the house under lights would have to be planted in the new wood.  

Maps

 Maps.

1. General Location

 Cairn and Pit Woods.

2.Cairn Wood.

3. Pit Wood. Compartments

4. Pit Wood. Rectangular sub Compartments. 

1.

O.S Map of North Nottinghamshire, showing the positions of Cairn and Pit Woods.
Tuxford is in the top left corner, the A1 on the left, and the Trent on the right.
The map predates their planting.   

2.

Forestry Commission map of Cairn Wood. The narrow strip of land between the A1 embankment and a mill stream.

The map shows two tracks that align with the A1 and terminate at the wood field. There is now a track joining the two, that is used as access to a Biodigester plant off the map to the North West. 

3.

The RPA map for The fields that form Pit Wood. The green areas were planted with trees when acquired. The reference numbers are related to the grid reference of the centre of the area. The red stars indicate there is no discernible boundary. 

The areas are referred to in the blog as:-

3046 .....Triangular.    Planted spring 2011

3843 .....Rectangular. Planted winter 2012/13

3343 .....Wind Break.  1970's Common Alder with a few conifers at the ends.

4153 .....Mixed.             1970's Mainly Scots Pine with a few Spruce and Sweet                                                       Chestnut.

                                         Largely Felled 2015/16 replanted with conifers and cherry.   

4064 ....Plantation       1970's Sycamore with Alder, and Red and Native Oaks.

               Tulip Wood.   Largely Felled 2015/16 replanted with conifers, Oak and                                                   Tulip trees.

4.

The sub areas of rectangular compartment. The the unspecifies area was originally planted spring 2013 with rows of Robinia, Sweet Chestnut, and Sycamore and Red Oak. The later were instead of Ash which not to be planted following the discovery of Ash Die Back.