Ash dieback identification

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Ash dieback identification
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tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45709
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun May 03, 15 6:28 pm Post subject:
1600 per hectare

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16121

Posted: Mon May 04, 15 8:06 am Post subject:

So just over 2m centre for the trees/shrubs? Any more and they tend to spread a bit too much and don't produce good straight trees. Sadly, you have to plant fairly close and then thin before hardwoods get very big, so there is only so much you can use them for. Have seen an example of trees planted too far apart, and they are just a mess.

As far as trees are concerned, we have people saying to us that they aren't worried about the timber potential for oak trees etc. Our reply is that you may not be, but in 100 years time someone will be cursing you if you don't at least consider that. Having a wood that shows what the owners thought in the way of forestry over perhaps 1000 years, and very obviously over the last couple of hundred, rather brings it home to you.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Mon May 04, 15 8:37 am Post subject:

Unless you constantly control grey squirrels you're unlikely to get much quality timber anyway. As soon as the canopy closes they'll move in an bark strip.

Tahir, is anyone devising a planting plan for you? The woodland manager I've been speaking to a fair bit is now planting in groups with clear gaps around them so most trees grow tall and straight but with the hope squirrels will do less damage.

I also thought sweet chestnut has so many diseases in this country it's not worth planting.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45709
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon May 04, 15 12:23 pm Post subject:
There's a lot of chestnut round here even though I lost most of my fruiting trees. The fc lady didn't seem to be co Ferber so I included them. I'll ask about squirrels but we don't see a lot of branches stripped by them. Don't know how good ours will be for timber as I don't know where I'll get the time to do the pruning but yeah that was our thinking

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16121

Posted: Tue May 05, 15 7:19 am Post subject:

I don't think there is any trouble with sweet chestnut, but horse chestnut is currently suffering badly. The two are completely different. The places we find most squirrel damage is on the main trunk just above a branch, although we have lost quite a lot of branches on mature trees to squirrels. There is timber and timber. It is said that if you let a tree grow on 10 years it doesn't look anything like as bad at the end of the time.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue May 05, 15 7:49 am Post subject:

There's plenty of problems with sweet chestnut. In the SW areas have had to be felled as it's susceptible to Phytophthora ramorum, so I'd not plant much of it down here. I also read recently an area in the south east had died from something else which I can't remember. (Edit to add, and there's a letter in the current Smallwoods magazine from someone saying dead sweet chestnut in the south east is more common than dead ash or larch in there experience).

As for squirrels you may not think many are about but it only takes a few over a few weeks to damage hundreds of trees. They will often take out the leader in oak. Yes many will recover but at what cost to the quality of the timber? I've got some oaks that have been attacked each year any they're not going to recover, a few that have been stripped so bad they're dying - and I don't have many squirrels. As mentioned, it seems to be a big problem as the canopy of a new wood closes, so 10 - 20 years time.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45709
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue May 05, 15 9:36 am Post subject:
As TD knows we have lost a lot of sweet chestnut (French imports of named cvultivars) to p ramorum, but this was after 2 wet winters that turned very cold follwed by hot dry summers. Our two nearest woods have a lot of chestnut in them so the FC officer wasn't too worried about us planting again. We do control for squirrels so maybe that's why we don't see much damage?

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue May 05, 15 4:21 pm Post subject:
I didn't know or I forgot you had p ramorum. I'm not worried about spreading it around as it seems to be nation wide now, rather questioning if it's worth planting sweet chestnut as they'll be killed off quickly.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45709
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue May 05, 15 4:28 pm Post subject:
Well, teh FC woman reckons they'll be fine. She should know better than me

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16121

Posted: Wed May 06, 15 8:45 am Post subject:

We don't seem to have P ramorum problems in sweet chestnut in central southern England at the moment as far as I know. We do have a reasonable number of well established coppice chestnut woods. If you lose the leader on an oak tree and are able to select another one within a few years, by the time the oak is felled in 150 years time or more, you probably won't even notice the kink. I take the point about squirrels though; they are very destructive. They are at their worst for bark stripping in the spring and it seems to be young males and when there is high density that the worst occurs. We get trouble some years and not others, depending on weather and buzzards I think.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46388
Location: yes

Posted: Wed May 06, 15 5:27 pm Post subject:
squizzers are delicious.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16121

Posted: Thu May 07, 15 6:42 am Post subject:
If we could manage to shoot a few, I would certainly try to cook them.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46388
Location: yes

Posted: Thu May 07, 15 9:58 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

If we could manage to shoot a few, I would certainly try to cook them.

peanut butter bait station with a decent backstop

bbq young ones

stew or pie older ones

better than bunny imho

Pel

Joined: 29 Mar 2008
Posts: 2366
Location: Sennybridge

Posted: Thu May 07, 15 3:24 pm Post subject:
we had a woodland bio-security seminar today, found out about plant tracker https://planttracker.naturelocator.org/ and Tree alert (FC). Plant tracker, apparently also tells you what you already have in your area, and you can add new sightings too it.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16121

Posted: Fri May 08, 15 6:17 am Post subject:
I went to a bio-security seminiar on woodlands the August before last, run by the Forestry Commission. Don't think there will be much more because of the cuts sadly. It was very interesting, but could easily make you paranoid. Useful to go to the seminar Pel. Who was it run by?

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