How to Select Woodland Trees for Thinning

[@AbellTo]

Just to add, if you’re cutting trees in a conservation area or the trees have a Tree Preservation Order you’ll need permission to work on the trees and if the timber volume you wish to fell is over 2 cubic metres and you’re planning on selling for firewood then you’ll need a felling licence from Forestry England. Hope that helps. Thanks

[@Nellyontheland]

It did help. I'm just glad that my woods are my own. Also, re-wilding is a bad idea. The trees and paths become dangerously overgrown and have one strong wind, and you have a disaster zone. Not to mention the fires in the summers. No, in my view, we NEED to maintain what we started and manage what we have. To add. I've inherited a poorly managed (i.e., not for 100 years) woods, and it's so dangerous to maintain that I'm clear-cutting most of it over the next 5 or so years. Some I'm finding too dangerous for me, an average home user, so I need to bring in the big guns. Not ideal. I'll get it to a state where I can continue, along with my kids that will inherit it one day. Cheers.

[@AbellTo]

@@Nellyontheland excellent, keep at it. I’m sure some will disagree but maybe that’s what makes caring for woodland so diverse. We do what we do with the best knowledge we have at the time

[@Nellyontheland]

@Abell To Think on this...Our parks and recreation places, the trees up the streets creating avenues of lush organised foliage. The new developments that are installing trees and plants to make it SEEM natural! This is what WE ALL want. Organised walkways, occasional wonky trees to climb, avenues of grass and leaf. ...we never want a rickety forest, a wicked witch, or three bears that takes the occasional rambler by surprise. 🤔

[@BollockyBollocks]

Thanks for that. I'm new to woodland management, having bought a 50-acre ancient oak wood with a couple of beech plantations. It's been left to its own devices for decades so we have climax oak and beech woods with not much underneath and little biodiversity. I decided to mark the trees L for legacy (protect and leave standing); V for veteran (damage to create habitat niches but leave standing); M for milling (cut for the sawmill when there's demand); and a number to indicate the year (5 =2025) when it should be cut for firewood or any other use in order to thin the canopy. I hope this helps =:D

[@AbellTo]

That is very organised. Well done, having a plan is a great start. All the best to you and your woodland, regards, Darren

[@yonmusak]

Love the idea of marking on multiple facets on the tree. I'm agonising over some serious work needed on a long overdue thinning operation. I'm concerned that I might be taking out too much of the nurse trees and risk the crop (oak). These discussions really help, so thanks!

[@AbellTo]

Thanks so much for watching, I’m glad it helps. It’s a tough decision sometimes and we don’t always get it right. All the best with marking and thinning Regards Darren

[@jamin500]

Just the video I needed. I've got a thinning next winter. Only a couple of acers.

[@AbellTo]

Glad it’s helped. All the best for next winter

[@ThePostRockProject]

Great vid! Great to get some perspective on thinning strategy, would be great to see some more videos like this on youtube. With regards to management vs no management, rewilding in a 'purist' sense where we leave nature to do its own thing only works when you have heavy disturbance from herds of megafauna, (Mamoths, Aurochs, giant deer) all of which are now extinct. These species would be constantly, coppicing, ring barking and toppling trees, creating a dynamic habitat. When we manage woodlands we are just mimicking the disturbance of extinct species, next time your out felling in the woods remember to think like a mammoth!

[@AbellTo]

Ayup Matt that’s a great point. I wonder what animal I can pretend to be!

[@fiveminuteman]

Great vid and useful. Where we moved to and the woodland i planted i can say that having us around has boosted wildlife. We have blackbirds nesting in our wood store, reinstating and maintaining hedges has increased the density and bird nesting activity.

[@AbellTo]

We’re the same, the bird life has significantly increased in the last 5 years at ours too

[@naturewatcher7596]

I noticed that the part of my wooded property which is not managed became a real mess of broken branches and tree trunks, rotting trees, plus it's so dark that almost nothing is growing underneath. The part which was thinned a bit let blueberry bushes to grow well and to give more berries, plus there are many different plants on the wood floor, plus you can move much easily through that part of the woods. So, if you want to have a pleasant walk in your woods, collect some berries and enjoy wildlife the thinned woods will be much better for it then the wild growing one.

[@AbellTo]

That’s really interesting you notice that, letting light to a woodland floor even if only in certain areas makes a big difference to the diversity of a woodland.

[@crefmag]

I have a section of my self-planted woodland that is full of little scrub birch, that I want to take out (and feed through the branch logger!) but there is so much bramble, it's going to be difficult to access. You don't seem to have any undergrowth at all. Squirrels are horrible pests - they've devastated many of my larger trees

[@AbellTo]

Bramble is frustrating at times, I have battles with it. Often once you penetrate an area it’ll quash down as you progress. In this woodland the coupe was very dense shade and the bramble had died out. Squirrels are an ongoing management project that have been quite bad for a couple of years mostly due to the mast years we’ve had Keep at it, the woodlands need you Take care Darren

[@robertsdarren]

Great video and thanks for sharing your thoughts. Are you considering the oak as a coppice crop on a longer cycle rather than as firewood?

[@AbellTo]

It’s an option so we’ll see how it develops, the basic plan is Hazel coppice with Oak standards and I have a video coming out that explains that in more detail

[@paulwood9741]

Good video but too short. Thinning v Fattening. I'm not clear why you would choose to fell a large hazel next to a thin hazel rather than let the larger tree grow more and take out the weaker tree? PS FYI I've had a couple of adverts while watching your videos.

[@AbellTo]

Hi Paul, too short, wow that does surprise me. Just to clarify I don’t thin or fat hazel, all hazel I cut is for coppice so a fairly large area gets cut. Thinning of Fatting tends to be for the tall crop trees, ash, beech, oak, sycamore etc. It all depends on the management requirements, the woodland I was marking up is quite poor form really and it’ll be many years before a true to Timber crop can be harvested. Cutting a larger wonky oak out now give a firewood return straight away whereas cutting a wonky little oak gives little returns and just leaves a wonky big tree in. Also I need to give the hazel lots and lots of light so a tree with a big canopy when felled opens things up and means less actual trees cut down. Hope my waffle makes sense Regards Darren

[@eckythump6429]

Will the felled oak stumps become coppice in their own right or do you need to leave taller stumps as with ash for them to re-sprout?

[@AbellTo]

Ayup eckythump, what a great name. Yes the oaks do regrow, the muntjac love them. Usually the oaks need all the light so if in shade they often die off from what I’ve seen. I try to encourage and preserve what seems determined to grow. Oak coppice is a different system in its own right. Often with a 30 year rotation of cuts

[@eckythump6429]

@@AbellTo there is a protected area of ancient coppiced oak up in the dale. Like most protected sites it is being left to collapse. They just seem to want to plant new trees rather than keep the coppice going.

[@AbellTo]

@@eckythump6429 makes you what what exactly is being protected