Restoration Felling Of Derelict Hazel Coppice For Firewood

Описание: This is hazel coppice in a Dorset ancient woodland, 50 years after last worked. It is being restored to rotation with dead hedges to protect the regrowth (and ground flora and tree seedlings) from the huge deer population. I've no central heating. Firewood is my 'compensation' for the work plus the reward of seeing the biodiversity improvements that result.

See me do what I do - one guy working on his tod. Feel free to use any of the ideas and practices you see but think it through first. I use chainsaws. Please don't buy a saw and just start in. Get trained. Get the hot, unwieldy protective clothing. The breeks don't have to be orange though....

Here is some background. It's a long read, but if you have the fortitude, see what you think? If you get through to the end, would you like to see this in a video? I'd have to do a script.......

There are viable and improving markets for quality in-cycle hazel coppice. Sadly the huge biodiversity value of in-cycle coppice is never part of a 'commercial' equation which only counts economic values. Carbon capture by coppice also doesn't feature in calculations even though it is demonstrably faster than new planting. It makes a lot of long term sense to restore derelict coppice with decent stool density (like this). Or overstood (a few years past cycle) coppice.

But felling derelict coppice for firewood can be awkward. The stems compete for light and wind together so that felling isn't simple like it would be with a 50 year old plantation of single stemmed trees. The stems aren't straight so felling for 'timber', even for hardwood pulp in truck transportable lengths (say 2.4m) would give you loads that would be rejected due to non-straightness and leave you with a lot of 'waste' in the wood.

How about cutting it for commercial firewood to pay for the restoration? 5' straights are just do-able if you are creative in your cutting and not too fussy. Moving a lot of 5' lengths is not as efficient as moving the same tonnage in longer lengths. Felling would have to be by saw operators - stool shape and bendy stems make felling by a shear or feller-buncher slow and awkward at best. To maximise usable tonnage and speed (productivity) your fellers need to be expert and fast. You would have to pay them top dollar.

For machine processing of cut timber for firewood you would need to move it out of the wood (twisty is awkward) and put through a firewood processor - twisty is awkward or 'rejectable'. Commercial firewood requires mostly split logs. Half of what I take out is too small to be worth splitting. Splitting logs in half is less productive than splitting into 4 or more - each log is split by ramming through a multi-way wedge. 4 logs at a stroke is much faster than 2 logs per stroke. To add maximum value to your logs, you need to supply retail.

Then there are the 'intangible' costs: To even consider bringing in machinery to remove the timber and export wood in trucks, you would need to cut a much larger area. That would not be compatible with the size of the wood you are cutting in - the wood in my vids is large for a farm woodland, but still small in the grand scheme of things. Then you would have the inevitable damage inflicted by even the best machinery with the best operators - soil compaction, rutting, impact damage to stools, damage to ground flora. Building dead hedges would be 'non-viable' commercially because the time needed would be an extra expense. Commercial cutting wouldn't make the cutters any money so getting it to pay the cost of deer fencing is a non starter.

If you supply in amounts less than 2 cubic metres you have to ensure that moisture content is under 20%, at point of delivery and you have to affiliate to a scheme called 'Woodsure' which takes time and money, so before selling any firewood, you are already behind. If you supply over 2 cubic metres at a time, you are exempt, which favours large operations working big areas.

'Slash barriers' to exclude deer in forestry in the eastern US forests are a recent experimental thing. They have recognised that at 8 deer per square mile (oh, I wish) regeneration from natural seed after clear fell is non-viable. They are built with machinery but everything that I use would go into the 'slash wall': only 'timber' is taken out.

In short, the 'forestry' case for restoring coppice is poor. Restoration of coppice requires support (grants) because the operations required to achieve successful restoration cost more than any income realisable from that restoration. Most policy makers rely on advice from foresters when designing woodland management support schemes. Most grant administrators are foresters, rather than woodland managers or ecologists. The upshot of this is that at present there is a constant bias away from woodmanship with its biodiversity and carbon capture benefits towards orthodox forestry practice. This needs to change