Hi all...just thought I should introduce myself.
I'm a forestry contractor in the UK. Got various letters after my name, but it doesn't seem to improve my income!
Mostly planting and maintenance these days, but a bit of harvesting when the Foot and Mouth lets us back into our production forests. Luckily we have a pretty full planting programme ahead this year. by which I mean about 250,000 trees between 3 of us. A busy winter ahead.
Look forward to sharing news, views, etc with you.
Norman
And a BIG WELCOME TIMBERUK ! I hope you stick around and enjoy this forum. It's composed of a great bunch of knowledgable guys...and me.
A couple of years ago I visited England, and Scotland. Where in the UK do you reside? 8) 8) 8)
Welcome Timberuk!
250,000 trees. That'd be about 500 acres (I guess bout 200 hectares) by my spacing, this right or you do it different?. What kind of trees are you planting? Just conifers or do you plant hardwoods as well? I hope you're machine planting, I don't even wanna think about planting a quarter million trees by hand! :D
Welcome Norman! Can't wait for this cross atlantic forestry education.
Welcome to the party TimberUK.
Thanks for the welcome! So many questions too.
I live in Cumbria, which is NW England. You may have heard of the Lake District? Just around the corner.
We generally plant at 2250 trees to the hectare, all hand planting. Mixed species, depending on the location and owner's objectives. Sitka, larch, oak, ash, alder, cherry, willow and so on. Our only native productive conifer is Scots pine, which needs a drier site than we usually get, so we depend heavily on Sitka for softwood timber. It grows pretty fast here, and is often ready for clearfelling at 60 years. Almost all of our conifer forests are planted... a few small natural Scots forests in Scotland.
Im off to bed..see you later.
Norman
hectare, THE LARCH. sorry its the monty python in me :D :D :D so would you like to stay in hudson NH for a few days, it is just south of manchester! anyway welcome. :)
Hi TimberUK, Welcome
Hand planting trees with real roots! How many per day on average? And how many in a run? What is your implement of destruction? What are the dates of the planting season there? and..and? :D :D
We were on a hoedad crew and would average 2500 loblolly pines/day in runs of 750-1000 trees spaced 6x9'. I continued planting eastern white pine in our mountains for a couple of years after Michelle quit (told ya'll she was the smart one). A full bag was usually 500 trees and a day was normally 1500...lotsa rock! Eastern coastal plains crews run 3000/day. I've never planted more than the occasional hardwood.
Thanks for the info, timberuk.
All hand planting, that must be tough on the back. Whole lot of trees for 3 people. :o
Good morning.
More answers on the way....
Planting season is normally early Nov. to March, although we can go into April or even May if it's a late Spring. I once had to plant oak that had already flushed in June, and they survived.
Spacing is usually 2m for conifers, and 3 for broadleaves. Its rare that we can get more than 200 trees in a bag. Sometimes we have complicated mixtures to plant, and that slows the job, but we aim for 2000 a day each, more if its pure Sitka. I once got 4000 Lodgepole in a day, but I was a young man then, and it was on soft peat.
We use Schlich planting spades..heavy but sharp.
Woodmills1..thanks for the offer. Same applies here, anytime. Coincidentally, I was born in the UK version of Manchester. The love of my life, Bonnie, is from the US( Fla and Tenn.) and she always tells me I would love your part of the States.
Oops, time to go to work..see ya later, all
Welcome TIMBERUK.
It'll be good to get another perspective on things, this board is truly going international.
Look forward to seeing some of your views on things.