Coppicing/Pollarding Willow

Evening all.

About 5 years ago I planted some willow on my land. I've read that it should have been ready for cutting after 3 years, but in my naivety at the time I didn't put any tree guards on, so they got set back a fair bit by having been eaten.

Anyway, by now they are established quite well. Today we went up there and cut a load of the poles off and planted them (this time with tree guards on) thus extending the plantation.

I cut them such that about 4ft of the original trees remained. I've seen other willow plantations where they cut the trees right to ground level.

Now I'm wondering, should I go up next weekend and cut more off the originals so that I can further extend the plantation, hoping that the originals send up lots of new growth from ground level in spring?

Also, I'm a bit unclear on the differences between coppicing and pollarding.

 

I would cut them to the ground. If you want to "plant" the bits you cut off that's fine. The "stumps" that you cut back should come back with significantly more shoots - so you will get a broader bush that you had before.

Coppicing is to cut down, to the ground, every 5 years or so (and generally to use the wood for fuel). It stimulates the plant to produce strong young growth, and I expect that this produced more "timber" than if the plant was just left to grow as a single stem - it would be bigger, and tree-like, but perhaps it would, in total, have less tonnage of wood than a tree that was coppiced. Also you get a crop every 5 years from Coppice, whereas if you grow a tree to maturity you have a longer wait.

My view on Coppiced wood is a bit different to the norm. I can understand using Coppicing if the wood is then converted into Chips or Pellets (but I don't like the thought of the energy that is needed to convert Wood to Chips / Pellets) but personally I would much prefer to have a harder wood for fuel. These fast growing woods that don't have much density need the same tonnage of dry wood to generate a given amount of heat, but the less dense woods therefore require more physical volume of wood. More wood to manhandle, split, and more firings of the boiler - so IMO a harder wood involved less haulage from forest to shed, less splitting and less double-handling.

Pollarding is to cut back a mature tree (typically Limes and Plane trees in town) so that new branches are produced. This is to prevent the crown of the tree becoming too large, and being a nuisance, or the branches getting large enough to then fall onto things / people damaging them. The Pollarding is typically done at 15' or so up the tree (where the branches formed originally)

Then there is "stooling" which is cutting a plant hard back to get a strong young shoot. You can do this, for example, with Paulownia and allowing only one stem to grow from the "stump", this will then have absolutely massive leaves as a result. Popular also for Catalpa and other similar large-leave trees.

 

Thanks Kristen.

I should maybe clarify though, its not my intention to use the willow for fuel. I too am unconvinced that its the right wood for that purpose, and with my limited knowledge, would lean more towards something like poplar for that purpose, as that too is very fast growing, and I believe it holds more energy per tonne than willow.

I'm mainly growing the willow ultimately to cut and sell to people wanting to make living willow structures. At least that's the commercial aspect of it. I don't expect to make a lot of money that way, not even a modest living I expect, just pocket money.

The main reasons I'm growing it apart from with the hope of one day making a few quid, are as follows, in no particular order. I want to muffle some of the noise from the main road that runs past my land. I want to form a barrier to reduce the spread of bracken from outside my boundary, and I want to further increase the biodiversity on the land, because first and foremost the land is my little eco project. I've read that willow ranks about third in the rank of most important native trees for wildlife in the UK, behind Oak and another that I've currently forgotten. I have a few established oaks on my land, along with hawthorn, blackthorn, rowan, apples (both native crab apples and a few cultivated apples), hazel, elder, and a few others, including one as yet unidentified tree. I can't remember who was on the top 10 most important for wildlife when I read it, but I've got most of them already. I was missing willow, but that's there now, and I think birch might have been on the list, which is also currently absent from my land.

 

All sounds good to me

 

Isn't it a bit early to be planting unrooted willow slips? The ones I've previously bought aren't cut/dispatched until the first week in March

 

By March they'll be growing again full tilt. I was taught that the dormant time is right. My dad has done loads and loads with nearly 100% success rate, and he always does it over winter.

 

Pretty sure that the sooner after 1st November you "plant" them the higher the strike rate. Having said that, Willow and Poplar will usually root by just looking at them!

 

i would have thought coppicing would be better for the purpose you want them for.

There's both systems going on down here on the levels. The Willows on the river banks are pollarded for fire wood.



That keeps the new shoots out of reach of the Deer.

But there are also plantation like fields where its cut right back to the ground to produce withies for hurdles/basket weaving etc.

A friend of mine even got burried in a Willow Coffin last year.

http://www.englishwillowbaskets.co.uk/visitor-centre

 

I really like that pic Zig, but how come there is a gate leading straight to water? Or is it usually a field rather than a lake?

 

Cheers Dave

You got it in one, thats Curry Moor, should be fields. That was the floods earlier in the year, they stayed too long & killed off all the grazing. It stank for miles.

Its only just started to regrow & now its all underwater again. I thought id taken a pic of a withy field at the same time, but I may not have uploaded it.

 

Interesting. Had never thought of that. Bit more hassle to harvest ... but at least you do get a harvest!

 

Don't know if you saw the last episode of Tales from the Wild Wood, but when they inspected his recently coppiced hazel a clump of sheep had been thru & nibbled all the tips of the shoots. Ruined it.