The last few months have been busy! Works sites have been particularly tricky to operate in/access due to the amout of rain we have had over the last few months. Opportunities to extract timber have taken when site conditions allow. Despite all the rain we have continued to cut in anticipation of the ground drying out.
Ash Coppice
Recent works include cutting some overstood ash coppice which will be used in the estate biomass and the excess for firewood
Coppice plot before works
Coppice plot after felling smaller stems to leave some standards.
The timber produce will be left until conditions dry out with extraction later in the spring to minimise damaging the soil structure.
Plantation thinning/respacing
A thinning operation was undertaken on a SSSI to allow more light to the forest floor. We also respaced a christmas tree plantation that had been left since it's original planting. This meant the trees were of poor quality as they had all been drawn up , the respacing should allow them to 'bulk out' to improve the potential timber yield.
Hardwood thinning
Xmas tree re-spacing
Extraction
When ground conditions and site's have allowed we've extracted timber where we can. The majority of this has gone to the fuel the estate's own biomass boiler.
Timber extraction
Tree shearing
We've had the tree shear out again. Reducing the height of some hedges and coppicing others to ground level.
Hedge before reduction
Looking back up the hedge after reducing
The new equipment has dramatically changed how we work, with larger compartments and trees now being handled efficiently. We are getting more proficient with the harvester and it surprises us each time with the production and capacity provided by such a small machine! We will do a full update on the equipment in a separate post once we have used it for a bit longer, but already it has tripled the output and meant we don't have to manhandle or reduce so many big logs! always welcome.
If you have any questions about the equipment or would like to discuss how we can help in your woodlands please feel free to give us a call or send an email Contact Us
For more photo's please go to our facebook page here where you can see these and photo's of other works.