Small scale willow coppicing

davyravy · Small scale willow coppicing

Hi,
I'm looking into starting willow short rotation coppicing to provide fuel for my domestic heating etc. Does anyone know of any groups of small scale growers set up to share equipment / experience etc?
David

Smooth Hound

dont know of any groups, but ive been doing this for a few yrs now, and i always love a chat

Smooth Hound

if you need any cuttings later on, then let me know, osier this is.

Smooth Hound

in exchange for some chutney or something

Smooth Hound

just noticed your new to the site, so welcome

Cockadoodledoo

Welcome from me too - I will also have lots of cuttings too

davyravy

Thanks for the replies. Very early days thinking about this so am trying to find out the pitfalls etc. before taking the plunge. Been toying with the idea of wood pellets but the installation cost and difficulty keeping pellets dry enough are putting me off. I think we will end up with a woodburning stove to heat the house with an oil boiler for back up.

Can either of you advise on getting started with willow?
Do you have a rotation going so you can harvest every year?
What varieties do you use?
What sort of area do you need to get sufficient supply? (4 bedrrom house) - I could go back to basics to work this out, but if anyone has done the calculation already!

Any and all advice welcome
David

aritchie71

i will be watching this one with great interest, i have a lot of willow here, but none of it has ever been coppiced so this year i am going to coppice a lot of it and use the cuttings to make a hedge and do some live willow work, but i am also intersted in using it for fuel for the rayburn!
Welcome on board davyravy!

Smooth Hound

ill be doing alot of live willow heging this winter and ill pu t pics

are you in the aberdeenshire area , if so you are more than welcome to come and see, at the moment i have 5 long rows a fraction over a m apparte, in 3 of the rows i have them 6 inches apart, in the other 2 ive got them a ft apart, ill let you know which is best as time goes on, i presume youve got a few yrs

im not growing for fuel though, although if it carries on a it is , i may have no choice

the price of coal, itll be that or freeze. im growing mine for my own hedging, and i have some live willow work in mind.

Maria

Just made a batch of green tom chutney....any good SH? It's my first bash at preserving...and not too bad...OH say's it'll be tasty on burgers. I've been eating it by the spoonful...but that's prob just because I'm so thrilled with my first bash at beefy toms (even if they are still green!)...and my first chutney attempt. 8)

Oooops. Willow. Please please count me in. Would love to learn more about coppice and living willow. Have read heaps...now need to put it into practice. I have a fully grown willow at the bottom of the garden...think it's salix brittaxia (sorry can't spell for toffee), has red stems in winter!! Was thinking of taking cuttings from this...the ones I can reach...and planting some.

Will also be watching with much interest.

Lisa

Hello all,
We planted some willow three years ago and are interested in both fuel and willow hedging or sculpture. Some of ours have taken a while to take off and are still small but I have quite a few that have done really well this year and was thinking of taking some cuttings so any advice on the right time of year/weather etc would be great. I am scared of cutting them to try to produce new trees or hedges as they have taken a while to get going and I don't want to ruin what we have but I have a lot of gaps along the roadside to fill! Looking at someone elses would be a great help so I can compare how ours are or should be at this stage.
I could bring that metal mop bucket with me

I am off to see my mom tomorrow who is very ill so wont be back online until the end of the week but will check back to see how everyone is getting on ASAP.
Lisa.

Smooth Hound

you will need to cut them to the ground, above the first bud anyway, probably about 3 inches left, so you can make as many cuttings as you need, if you cut them into 10 inch lenghths and push them 6 inches into the ground, i find it best to put them through polythene.
but you will need to cut back your rods even if you dont use them , if you want more rods, once you have had them going a couple of yrs like that, then you can start growing 2 and 3 yr old rods,

Smooth Hound

as for time of yr , theres a week during feb which is always nice, that would be a good time, so if you get your plastic down now , then youll be ready

your plastic, either dig in at the edges in abot 2 ft wide lenghths, or if you have a source of old tyres, just lay your plastic down and put you tyres on top of it and plant in the aspces. it works out that way with 13/14/15 inch tyres.

Julie

When we first planted ours I went to a lot of trouble strimming the grass around them twice a year (and got into a lot of trouble every time because I barked a few). The third year, I hadn't time or the inclination to bother with it and it grew much better with the shelter of the long grass.
Whether it was because the weather couldn't give it windburn or it didn't have to keep recovering from my strimming accidents is debatable. I have since read an article by someone who found that leaving the grass to grow long around his young willows stopped the rabbits from eating them. In view of this, I personally wouldn't bother with the time and expense of the plastic. Gordon coppiced every other one the first time - not sure what his plans for it are currently.
We have used it for fuel in the Rayburn and it burns fine as long as it isn't still wet. You are left with a great many irritating twigs though. I snipped most of ours up the first time and gave myself blisters from the secateurs. I had a whole log basket full which took less than an hour to burn. The blisters, on the other hand, took several weeks to heal so I incinerated them the next time. I should have put them through the shredder really.
I also made a living willow dome in the field but it was quite unruly and determined to free itself and reach for the sky, so we cut it down and the sheep munch on the shoots whenever they go into that field.

Smooth Hound

:oops: well i did some in 2 ft wide plastic , and some on open, and although you ae right they will get going eventually, if you can keep the weeds down , and keep the moisture in, with the plastic, you willow will be away in yr 1 going well, but without it your behind a yr or 2

Forget-me-Not · Willow

Hi,
Could you count me in too? We're willow beginners and very interested.

Can bring jam, eggs and my latest love, Date and Ginger Cake?

Thanks
Forget-me-Not

wildgarlic

http://the-goodlife.blogspot.com/search/label/willow has some info that may be of use!

Forget-me-Not · Blog

Hi,

Thanks! While I'm here i'm happy for the pic to go to the other group (that is you isn't it?) but how do I do it?

Beth

Cockadoodledoo

davyravy

Went to a local nursery asking about cost of willow rods - reckoned £1 each. As am hoping to plant about half an acre - that price would bankrupt me! - any ideas on cheaper sources?

wildgarlic

Yes! Try Bob Davis at The Forvie Tree Nursery.

His address is on the list http://treenurseryscotland.org.uk/list.html

MJ

We used to get our withies fae the railway banks. A wee bit safer would be some where like http://www.willowwithies.co.uk/about_us/index.htm 150 rods for £30, sorry not very local though.

Sassinak

I got mine from Freecycle.

Chap at Turriff who prunes a large willow hedge every year.
I think I got them about march or April. If I can find his email, I could ask him if you could have some off him in the spring. I took basically as much as would fit in the back of the Trooper pick-up and could have taken more if I'd had room.
PM me if you're interested. I got over 50% that took and they sat around a while before I planted a lot of them

Smooth Hound

at sometime over the next few weeks , i will be cutting my home grown rods

:walk:

no seriously, im planting i long live willow hedge, if anyone wants to make arrangements to watch/help

:oops: feel free

Maria

Me - just say when

Smooth Hound

when,

ok ill let you know when

Maria

Forget-me-not say's 'me too' (she busy at the min and hasn't been online).

Smooth Hound

JamesB · willow cuttings

willow roots very easily from cuttings.
we bought some willows from Bob at FTN one year and every year we take cuttings and in most cases just stick them in the ground and they grow, it really is the easiest tree to make cuttings from.

in terms of fuel then it is going to be very labour intensive as a fuel source unless you do as the professionals do and harvest by machine and its not a particularly good fuel. just bear that in mind, if you want it only as fuel for a wood burner then there are more suitable trees such as ash which can be coppiced very well

James

JoH

Does Andrew Saunders at Colpy not still 'farm' willow?

Smooth Hound

i think so

JoH

The different colours he had were quite impressive. We used to get some of our trees from him for the estate and I always remember just being gobsmacked at how surreal some of them could be.

I'm doing a willow hedge about 50m at the moment. Quite excited

Maria

JoH

It would look rather like 50m of small sticks stuck in the ground at the moment I'm afraid

wildgarlic

I think they gave it up a while back.

Smooth Hound

i think they will sell if you ask, but their not bothered any more,

something like that anyway

davyravy · ..willow update

just realised its almost a year since i first posted on this subject - unbelievable. In the end I got 1 year old cuttings from Bob Davies and also some hedge cuttings from a local source near Turriff. Must admit - other than bunny fencing the plantation I did little more than throw them in the gound. Was not expecting the hedge cuttings to do anything much - but to my surprise they've actually grown much faster than the year old cuttings!

For next year I'm going to try and be good and actually do some weed control - bought loads of black plastic - and see what difference it actually makes. Will also throw in a few more varieties to minimise disease loss.

Am also thinking about other species - ash, poplar etc - anyone got any experience with these?

Our heating system is currenlty all oil but I'm hoping wood-chip boilers will be cheaper in 4 years time when our first coppiced wood is ready!

bracken · ash

Hi Davyravy

we do all our heating and hot water with wood as a fuel.
Our cooker is an Esse woodburner and we have a charnwood stove in the lounge. We have oil as a back up but we haven't used it in two or three years now. All three are connected to the hot water/heating system via a dunslow neutraliser.
We are fortunate in that we are surrounded by our own sitka spruce plantation - although it isn't the woodburner's 1st first fuel choice we find it useable. The main thing is to dry it out completely before burning as it produces tar by the ton which isn't good for the flues!
If I were to start from scratch I would plant ash as it is one of the only woods that will burn 'green' - however it is fairly slow growing - especially this far North. We have some ash which was planted by a previous owner around 15 years ago and it isn't very substantial - you might get a camp fire with it!!
I personally wouldn't go for a wood pelleter as you still have to buy the stuff in - I prefer being able to forage for wood (pallets, fallen trees, etc) or buy (scrounge) joiners offcuts.
If you do go down the wood fuel way then be prepared for your home to be covered in a fine film of ash.........!!

davyravy

good to hear you can do everything with wood Bracken.

am in (more than) 2 minds as to best way to go with growing our own wood. have looked into the grants available but they barely cover the cost of hiring an agent needed to do the application for you if your plantation size is small.

so I think the answer is going to be trying a bit of everything - willow and poplar for speedy results with ash and other better burning woods for the long term.

we have a neutraliser installed in our system- but its waiting for me to get off the fence and decide on a chip burner (chipping our own), log burning boiler, or multifuel stove - might have made my mind up by the time our wood is ready!

Smooth Hound

you dont have to have an agent, but even though i would tend to work without the grants, but thats just me, all you really need to do, is to choose suitable trees for your land, sounds good what your choosing, hazel would be a good one too, might be nice to have a few pockets of shrubbery too, like a bit of buddlea, dog rose, elder etc, you will also need to establish what your problems will be , rabbits, deer , then you will be able to make a decision as to whether you fence or tube, or if you need to at all, if you need any advice, i would be happy to take a look.

as for agents though, it can be done without, just a bit of paperwork, and quite alot of waiting.

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