Woodland and Habitat Management: Hazel coppicing

[@Northcountry1926]

Wonderful explanations - thank you

[@saethman]

Love your talking stick :) Do you thin out any of the stems or do you leave all stems to grow the full 7 years? Would also like to hear your thoughts on spacing

[@anemone104]

Sorry to butt in but I think you need an answer, so for what it's worth, here's one. Coppice means cutting all stems on a stool. You can thin the stems, but this is very rare and vanishingly rare with hazel coppice where for traditional uses (and current economic uses) you need the regrowth to be even and uniform. For hazel, 7 years is usual. But if regrowth is particularly good and reaches the best size for the intended use early (5 years,say) it can be cut. Other coppiced tree species (oak, ash, sweet chestnut, alder, willow) usually run on a different cycle. The nature conservation benefit from commercial hazel coppice is of high value although it is difficult to measure that value: rightly or wrongly 'income' is the way usually used to quantify 'value', which is simplistic. A hazel coppice, managed with commercial sale of a quality standing crop as the principal objective can have excellent nature conservation benefits, especially in an ancient woodland. Change the balance a little towards nature conservation and the benefits can increase, but it should be stressed that in the long term, 'let be' management can bring about a diminution of species diversity and a diminution of the density of that diversity. Coppicing actually increases lifespan of individual stools and some can be ancient. This explains: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4DLp5yQh5yKjMk and also talks through the carbon capture and storage in hazel coppice. Spacing. If planting a coppice, close is better. Depends who you talk to, but planting whips at 3m spacing is usual, although I have seen it done much closer. Once you start coppicing hazel, the stools expand and the shoot density increases. Same happens if you re-cut derelict coppice. Dense is good as your crop is better and a wood that pays is a wood that stays. This is for 'plain coppice', but most woods are coppice with standards, standards being maiden (un-cut) trees usually oak. They have their own spacing and their own (muuuuch longer) rotation. Have a shufti at this for more info'; kzbin.info/www/bejne/onXVomd3epqIbdU I hope this is useful and not too much of an intrusion.

[@saethman]

@@anemone104 Thank you, that was very extensive :) I'm looking into turning my tiny woodlands (0.5 hectare) into a hazel coppice, but with the goal of fire-wood 🤔It seems to be possible on a 7-year rotation, although it will not be big logs (and much or most of the growth will be thinner, and I don't really have any use/ideas for that - except for chipping it into mulch)

[@anemone104]

@@saethman You could cut in winter and then 'chunk' it into 2-3" lengths, dry it over the summer and then load into a wood burner with a hand shovel.

[@saethman]

@@anemone104I guess it would work with large wood burners, rocket stoves and the like. I would like to use it as small logs for ordinary fire places, but never found a good source for how thick the Hazel would become after 5 years. Some claim to use it as wood logs, but never really show the size and/or age... From your videoes it seems that the Hazel will have to be a lot more than 5 years to achieve the size of a small "log". Might have to use it for kindling :)

[@anemone104]

@@saethman Works well as kindling.After 5 years it's going to be around thumb thickness unless you have a lot of shade or deer browsing when it will be smaller and if deer browsing, much less efficient to work. fill a saw brake like the one on this vid to cut it to length: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iGKzeoKYn8aYoLc If I have bean rods that don't sell or make the grade, I use them as kindling. They are the by-product from restoring 50-plus year derelict hazel to rotation which you have already spotted.. This shows a bit more in case you are interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gp-7m6WnpZira7s