Jack - What's the technique for coppicing

[Buckshot]

Jack or anyone else who knows,

I've got some hazle that was coppiced several years ago and needs doing again.

Is it just a case of slicing it through with a billhook or is there more to it that. I think there must be like how far off the ground or away from the original trunk should the cut be.

Any info greatly appreciated

Cheers

Mark

 

[mbrodw]

I'm no expert but i have done some work in a woodland as an apprentice and we took the coppice at the level of the trunk! The best tool to use is a bow saw, trust me using a bill hook for anything more than a small amount will leave you absolutally knackered and with quite a number of blisters (i'm talking from experience). When you say that it is ready for coppicing again-what will use the wood you remove for? This is important as obviously it might be worth leaving it for longer if you have a select purpose!

Just a few thoughts!

Mark

PS-like i say iam no expert!

 

[familne]

'Caring for Small Woods' by Ken Broad is a good little book that covers coppicing. It says that ' with hazel, the cut is generally made as low as possible irrespective of the previous level.'

Hope this helps

 

[Bob]

It's a good idea to cut fairly low on the stool.

Angle your cuts away from the centre of the stool (so the cut is higher on the side nearest the centre of the stool, and lowest on the opposite side i.e. furthest from the centre of the stool). Avoid level cuts as this allows water to collect on the cut surface which may promote rot. Also try to avoid splitting the stump left for the same reason.

Unless you're happy using a billhook you may find it easier to use a bowsaw / pruning saw - start on the outside and work in, cutting a space to work in as you go.

If you have deer using the wood, and you have enough brash left, it might be worth your while piling brash on top of the cut stool to prevent the deer eating the tender regrowth. Around Oxford you have plenty of Muntjac and Roe. Roe will certainly go for young hazel - but I'm not sure about Muntjac (maybe someone else will know).

Hope that helps - enjoy your wood.

Bob :-D

 

[Buckshot]

Thanks guys, that's a great help :You_Rock_

The area I need to coppice is just outside my pheasant release pen. The hazle is 15-20 feet high which is the ideal roosting height for them. The problem is it encourages the birds to leave the pen early, if the hazle were inside the pen I would leave it alone but where it is it has to go.

The wood wont be wasted though, I'll use it as ground cover for the birds to hide in inside the pen.

You're right about Muntjac and Roe, I'll have to think about how to protect the shoots.

Thanks again :uu:

Mark

 

[Jack]

Jack or anyone else who knows,

I've got some hazle that was coppiced several years ago and needs doing again.

Is it just a case of slicing it through with a billhook or is there more to it that. I think there must be like how far off the ground or away from the original trunk should the cut be.

Any info greatly appreciated

Cheers


Mark

Dear Mark

You have asked a great question as there are so many myths about coppicing, one of these is like Bob says about the slant shedding water away from the stool and it is a point you see and hear being taught all the time but, unfortunately is wrong and it is something I will sit down a write about but it is something I would really need to show you.

Another myth, placing the brash over your stool will protect it from deer. I am afraid it won't and I will go into more detail :shock: when I get the chance.


Best wishes.

Jack.

 

[Buckshot]

Thanks Jack, I'll wait with baited breath

I'd also heard the stories about making the cut at a slant and covering over the stump with the cut branches to keep out deer. The last one I was told by a keen woodsman and 'expert' hedgelayer :shock: at least he's one of thier top judges...

Thanks

Mark

 

[Bob]

Don't want to fall out with you on this one Jack but that info. is correct! Brash put down will discourage deer - if it is laid thick enough. If only a few pieces are laid across a stool it will not be enough of a deterrent - but a good covering will. I've used it, done it and it worked.

Also sloping cuts will benefit the stool. Having worked with a local coppice worker with four generations in the trade I think that particular technique would have fallen in disuse by now if it wasn't effective! A sloping cut also reveals a slightly larger surface area which helps stimulate regrowth.

Each to their own opinion - but I stand by what I said (else I wouldn't have said it).

Bob :-D

 

[Jack]

Ok

Bear with me..............it’s not easy to explain in writing!!

People are under this misconception that by laying the brash over stools will deter deer. I would like to know how that happens as deer aren’t genetically programmed to see brash as a threat to them. People seem to think that just because that has been done for x amount of years/generations/decades automatically believe that this is right and will not question it further.

You are partly right, deer do not like mess, they don’t like to walk through to much brash and they will avoid it if possible but were this augment falls down is in the simple fact that if deer are hungry enough they will walk through the brash and munch away. I can take you to woodlands where the estate policy is to burn everything in site, all the brash, all the waste. Not a scrap of wood left in the coupe. Then I will take you to an estate where we cut 30 acres of overstood hazel and if you have cut overstood hazel then you will know how much brash that produces and you will see that the policy in this area was to cover the whole woodland with the brash from the overstood. Believe me, nothing could walk through that, but, it has been annihilated by deer.

In the past their were people known as the ‘stickers’ and these people would walk through the woodland after the woodsman had finished and would pick up all of the material laying around on the woodland floor, it would be spotless, even woodlice found it difficult to find a home it was that clean, but we had some of the finest hazel stands and the deer had wonderful access to it but did not do the damage that everyone get carried away with now.

The only way to protect your stools is simply done by reducing the deer population within your woodland, there is nothing more scientific to it then that!

The angle of the cut is another one of those mis understood techniques.

We hear people say that you:

1..Only cut up and not down when you are coppicing by hand.

2.All the slants have got to be facing outside of the stool.

3.The angle sheds the water.

4.It stops the stool from rotting.

We will take each point in turn but bear in mind that most of this is visual.


1. Have you ever tried to coppice an acre with this method. Hurdle makers of old used to cut down as this is the easiest method and it doesn’t then split your rod. This method is fine on young hazel but forget it on the older rods.

2. This is the natural pattern that forms anyway, if you are cutting by hand or with a chainsaw, again people have forgotten to stop and look and study their subject.

3. yes it does but that doesn’t mean anything. Rain floods the stool, it isn’t subjective, it doesn’t arrive to a coppice stools after falling 20,000 feet and then decide not rain into the middle of the stool just because the hazel is cut at a slant. The whole stool get wet like everything else.

Where people get confused with the slant business is by the fact that they haven’t realised that by it’s very nature, you will leave a 45 degree angle on a stool after you have swung a billhook, try it and you will see that it is impossible to do any other way. Even with chainsaw, you will quite often see an angle of about 45 degrees.

4. No. The stool will naturally rot back to the nearest epicormic bud. This is the whole essence of coppicing. If it wasn’t for this amazing ability that the broadleaves have, we wouldn’t have coppicing. Regrowth is stimulated by hormones and not surface area and these hormones are released when the tree is under attacked, it reassures it’s survival. The lower you cut the stool the more regrowth you will get simply because you have a higher number of epicormic at the bottom of the stool.

 

[Bob]

As my advice is being called into question I will elaborate.

1. Deer and brash -

Deer may not be 'genetically engineered' to fear brash but they are 'engineered' to fear situations that inhibit their escape by flight or to cover. A thick layer of brash inhibits their free movement but doesn't offer concealment - so they will avoid it (and the stools).

This is not foolproof though. In poor conditions hungry animals will go against instinct in the pursuit of food, and I've yet to see a 100% animal-proof barrier. More than once I've watched deer leap a 6'6" 'deer-proof' fence.

The odd failure does not detract from the fact that overall this technique works. Woodlands in the past may not have been protected from deer but that was because deer numbers were not as high as they are now. Down here in the Purbecks the Sika population has soared in recent years, and to coppice without deterrents is folly.

There is also another consideration - other animals. Jack's annihilated coppice may have been caused by rabbits. Brashing stools in a wood with a high rabbit population nearby just invites them in to live under the brash - so no regrowth.

No technique works every time - but this doesn't make it a myth.



2. Sloping cuts -

My advice was sloping cuts are better than flat ones - this is true. Regardless of whether the cut is in a wand or a tree top, a sloping cut on a vertical stem sheds water and allows compartmentalisation to occur in conditions which inhibit pathogens.

Sloping cuts to the wands on a stool is therefore just an extension of this. All cuts face out avoiding stale air and prolonged wet conditions, therefore effective healing and healthier stems.

Cutting wands facing out is also easier; the outer wands can be cut low, which in turn means the inner wands can be cut lower too. This results in light reaching the maximum amount of surface area of the 'body' of the stool. The high light levels stimulate auxins (plant hormones which control growth) resulting in regrowth. Without this light the initial regrowth will be slow.

'Myth' number two explained.


I don't know where you got the idea that sloping cuts stopped rain from entering the stool centre Jack, but it wasn't from me (bit of a facetious story though).

Tradition doesn't always mean blindly following an old idea - trial and error over time acts as a good guide. Teach from a position of knowledge, understanding and experience - not arrogance.

Bob :-D

 

[Jack]

Bob.

No one is questioning your advice!

It is just this subject has been discussed/ studied/trailed and debated for so many years that in the end the FC ran a comprehensive trial at Alice Holt and the conclusion by them, just confirmed the conclusion that the majority of woodsmen had form for themselves with their first hand experience and that was the fact that a stool was just as productive, if not more, when cut with a chainsaw ‘flat’ as opposed to a slant, reason being simply because the stool has been cut lower and cleaner and will confirm your writings on light reaching the maximum surface area but as I said earlier. This of course is nothing new and the experience right across the industry has been the same.


If you don’t get the first cut right forget the rest. You can always tell that a coppice has been cut by this method just by looking at the height of the stools, the woodland I am working now (and is not far from you) has stools that over two feet in height and this makes a hell of a job for me because I won’t leave them at that height, I take them right back down to the ground.

Don’t worry about the sloping cuts shedding water away from the centre of the stool Bob as this example is just another one of those many myths. ‘ They’ say that by shedding water away from the centre prevents the centre of the stool from rotting out. Again, an old wife’s tale.

Why I find this whole topic of deer damage interesting is because deer have a direct influence on my life and my work simply because they are eating all of my hard work and my future resource and if I haven’t got that then I have no work.

We were having this very discussion at talk I done at East Dorset District Council, along with squirrels but that is a different story. We are all aware of the deer population rise and there are, of course many reason for this, decline of coppicing is just one. People are saying that we have many deer now then we had will William the Conquer landed. I have had many a meeting/discussion’s with stalkers and a good chum of mine is a wonderful, professional stalker, in fact he lives near you! My final point is this:

We can all gone on complaining/ bleating on about deer numbers the damage they do they best way the prevent them eating your coppice ( a fence is the only way but then who wants a tennis court affect in an ancient woodland?) the simple fact that we have all forgotten is, prevention, is better than cure! – we have to cull more.

Jack.


PS. Not rabbit damage – the nip is to high for a rabbit and two..........we have to many foxes!

 

[familne]

This is very interesting - keep it up!

 

[Roving Rich]

Yep :-D
Just to have my two cents worth...I certainly don't have your experience :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy
I believe you are both correct on the sloping stool point. It is not to shed water from the stool itself but just stop it sitting on the end of the cut rods, and rotting down into the stumps themselves. It was also the natural shape produced by cutting with a billhook. Hell it certainly can't do any harm can it?
And putting brash on the stools, as I have read and been taught by the BTCV that it only helps the new shoots become established from their first tender days, after which they reach a height to get grazed at anyway. But are past those first tender stages.
IMHO this must be a new practice as in ye olden days any brash would have half inched by the peasants or bundled into faggots sold and burned in household fires.?
As Mark is a Deerstalker I think he may well have the best solution to this grazing problem anyway!
Cheers
Rich
:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

 

[Buckshot]

Too right :AR15firin

Mark

 

[Bob]

Glad we thrashed that out then!

Bob :-D

 

[Jack]

Bob.

Don't you mean we 'brashed' that out!! :shock:

Best wishes.

Jack.

 

[Buckshot]

Thanks for your input gentlemen - much appreciated

I'll start work on the deer population as soon as I'm able....

Cheers

Mark

 

[Nod]

Sorry to be really late in on this.........but, what is "Brash".

 

[Roving Rich]

Brash (in this context) is the trimmings, the side shoots that get cut off when the long straight Hazel rod is used.
Cheers
Rich

 

[Andy B]

I visited a coppice maintained by a horticultural research center here in N.Ireland. It was all willow and they basically used it to treat sewage sludge. The root mat formed by the coppice was so thick that the sludge was filtered into clean water by the time it reached the water table.

Massive saving and huge amount of money to be made.

Not only that but the coppice was cut every year and the wood burned to provide the electricity for the facility. The amount of carbon released by burning was the same as the carbon fixed by the plants during the growing cyle so no increase in carbon emissions was noted in the enviroment. very enviromentally friendly indeed.

Fascinating stuff.