Aveland Trees

Many new broad-leaved woodlands have been planted over the past thirty years with financial help from a variety of Forestry Commission grant schemes. Typically trees have been planted at 2.5 metre or 3 metre spacing with the intention that quick canopy closure will produce straight trees and that subsequent thinning will favour trees of good form and potential.

 In practice many young woodlands have been neglected after establishment so that trees have developed long, thin trunks and poorly developed crowns. Slower growing species have been overshaded and those which reach the canopy have such narrow crowns that they are unable to respond to subsequent thinning by filling the gaps.

Woodland owners often do not have the necessary expertise to thin their woods at the correct time. It is perceived as a costly exercise in terms of manpower with little revenue. Many woodland owners with shooting interests leave their young plantations for thirty years then, deciding that their woods need some “warmth”, plant evergreen shrubs which are doomed to fail into the gloomy interior.

Owners with conservation interests justify their lack of management as “letting nature take its course”. In so doing they are producing impoverished woodlands of little value to wildlife compared with the rich biodiversity of the mature woodland that was envisaged at the time of planting.

Encouragement and education alone will not persuade many woodland owners to thin their young woods correctly. What is needed is practical ways of managing young woodland at minimal cost to the owner and to the long-term benefit of the woodland ecosystem.
 

Thinning by Ring-barking

Trees can be quickly ring-barked by holding a chainsaw against the tree at waist height and cutting through the bark as you walk around the tree. Often, simple ring-barking is not enough to kill the tree so a suitable herbicide should be applied by brush to the cut all around the tree.

When trees are ring-barked in the winter they will usually come into leaf the following spring. Some vigorous species such as Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, may produce leaves for two summers after ring-barking. As the tree slowly dies it first sheds its leaves, then the smaller twigs and branches. At this stage the stem is sound and is perfectly dry. It is ideal for felling as firewood and needs no further storage. A typical tree will remain standing for 4 years or more until root decay makes it topple.

Tree two years after ring barking

Conventional felling produces sudden large gaps in the canopy that increase the exposure of the crowns of neighbouring trees. They will be slow to fill the gaps. Ring-barking slowly opens gaps in the canopy over several years allowing the crowns of neighbouring trees to grow into the space provided. It is a natural process similar to a tree dying slowly of disease.

If firewood is not required, the ringed trees can be left to provide the valuable and scarce habitat of standing dead timber. This is a particularly rich environment for insects and fungi as well as woodpeckers and other woodland birds. When the tree eventually falls it becomes lying dead timber. It becomes moist and decay is hastened by a new assemblage of insects and fungi. Organic matter is incorporated into the soil and the woodland begins to build up its carbon storage.

At Aveland Trees we have experience in selecting trees for thinning. We can ring bark the selected trees and give advice on harvesting for firewood.

Tags: ring barking, thinning trees, woodland carbon storage, woodland management

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 12:00 pm and is filed under woodland management.
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