WOODLAND MANAGEMENT > Harvesting ash dieback
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THINNING WOODLAND BENEFITS
THE TREES > Sawn oak
16
Everyone knows you can tell the age of a felled tree by counting the growth rings visible across the exposed trunk – but that’s not all you can tell. Looking more closely at the spacing between the rings will also reveal when the tree was growing most vigorously, allowing the experienced eye to tell when the woodland around it was thinned. For Jon Davies, who runs South East Forestry with business partner Dave Holmes, it’s clear proof of the benefit of regularly thinning woodland and allowing the trees left behind to benefit from increased sunlight and less competition. “You see wide rings early on when the young tree is growing strongly, and then they get narrow as it gets crowded out, but then the rings widen again for a time – that’s when the woodland was thinned and the tree really had an opportunity to grow properly,” he explained.
JANUARY 2022 | WWW.SOUTHEASTFARMER.NET
But while Jon and the long-established South East Forestry team are keen to regenerate areas of woodland for the sake of biodiversity and to encourage better carbon sequestration, they also appreciate that for farmers, woodland is – or can be – a cash crop. That’s why South East Forestry has a unique approach to woodland management that can deliver a surprisingly good return to landowners. They have the experience, the skills and the machinery to assess areas of woodland and thin it in a way that will create maximum value for the harvested timber. With their own, sophisticated equipment, a yard where more valuable timber can be stored for later use and an eye for detail, the team can create value for the landowner while also managing an otherwise choked and unhealthy wood.
