Ancient woodland to be destroyed to combat larch tree disease...

[Stringmaker]

This is heartbreaking

"Hundreds of acres of ancient woodland are to be destroyed after becoming infected with an invasive tree disease that is spreading around the country.Tests have confirmed larch trees at Wentwood Forest, near Newport, which is the largest ancient woodland in Wales, are infected with the fungus-like disease Phytophthora ramorum.
Nearly 500 acres of the woodland, which is home to rare wildlife including dormice, adders and nightjars, are now to be cut down and destroyed in an attempt to control the outbreak."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ag...e-destroyed-to-combat-larch-tree-disease.html

500 acres.........I could weep.

 

[Greg]

They have already taken mass swathes of trees down in the RCT Area and valleys North of Port Talbot...it's a real shame!

 

[bob_the_baker]

Sounds terrible but is it going to be a complete slash and burn job? Surely not all 500 acres is Larch, Beech, etc

 

[Stringmaker]

The complete estate is about 2500 acres, and I believe that a slash and burn type felling is exactly what they have to do.

 

[Greg]

That is what they have done in the areas I mentioned!!

 

[chimpy leon]

Phytophora is claiming a lot of woodlands in the UK. My favourite local (staffordshire) forest is in the middle of being clear felled because of its spread. I walked it last sunday with the dogs and could bearly recognise it. What was once considered the jewel of north staffordshire is almost a baron waste ground now.

 

[Pterodaktyl]

It's not good at all, but the way this is presented in most of the news articles I've seen seems a bit misleading. They're felling non-native larch trees planted ON an ancient woodland site within the last 100 years, and the land will be replanted with native trees. The fact that it's being done so rapidly rather than over a period of time as a managed conservation project is a real shame and will no doubt cause further damage to the local ecosystem, but headlines like "Ancient woodland to be destroyed" don't really bear much relationship to the truth.

I guess "Ancient woodland was destroyed 100 years ago, now the timber crop that replaced it will be cut down" doesn't roll of the tongue as well...

 

[Toddy]

It's horrible to contemplate and especially in such a scale in an area full of indigenous ancient trees.

The larch isn't really; it was introduced for it's timber somewhere around 1620. It's still settling in, iimmc, it doesn't have all of the wide web of insects, plant co-existers, etc., that longer term residents have. It's really an alpine tree not a damp maritime one.
Still a blooming shame though

On a slightly cheerier note however, apparantly the biggest company responsible for the deforestation of virgin forest has agreed to stop
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/a...ning-point-for-deforestation&utm_campaign=app

M

 

[ammo]

It's a sad shame. Let's hope this does not have to happen in more places.

 

[Ecoman]

I think its the same fungus they found in the grounds of Brodick Castle. They have cut down huge amounts of flora and its all been burnt.

 

[Harvestman]

The person responsible for the Woodland Trust element of Wentwood (it is a bit of a patchwork) is also the manager for my reserve, which is not too far from Wentwood. From what I've seen the woodland is being clear felled, at least in parts. It won't result in complete loss of the woodland, and actually a lot of the trees that are being felled would have been cut down in time anyway as there was an ongoing program of removing the conifers and replacing them with native broadleaves. The affected area will certainly be replanted. Nonetheless, there certainly will be significant loss of ancient woodland and habitat. Some of the oaks in that area are massive and will be lost, and I can think of a bracket fungus that has its only Welsh record on those trees too.

All the same, better this than allowing the destructive disease to spread and cause greater loss.

 

[Pterodaktyl]

Finally tracked down the Woodland Trust's own statement on this:

http://www.woodlandtrust.presscentr...est-to-be-felled-due-to-tree-disease-f85.aspx

No mention of felling species other than larch, so presumably the remaining ancient trees are safe. The main problem is the sudden exposure of the forest floor to daylight vs. the slow process of a managed restoration from conifer to broadleaved.

 

[Harvestman]

Excellent. If only the larch needs to be removed that is much less damaging. The fact that areas already look like they have been clear-felled just shows how monocultural many of our woodland became when they were planted with conifers in the first place.

 

[robin wood]

It's not good at all, but the way this is presented in most of the news articles I've seen seems a bit misleading. They're felling non-native larch trees planted ON an ancient woodland site within the last 100 years, and the land will be replanted with native trees. The fact that it's being done so rapidly rather than over a period of time as a managed conservation project is a real shame and will no doubt cause further damage to the local ecosystem, but headlines like "Ancient woodland to be destroyed" don't really bear much relationship to the truth.

I guess "Ancient woodland was destroyed 100 years ago, now the timber crop that replaced it will be cut down" doesn't roll of the tongue as well...

I am glad you said it. I get wound up by this sort of sensationalism. Do you know how you destroy a woodland? there is only one way, you turn it into farmland normally by sustained grazing. Anything else is not destroying it. People don't like folk cutting trees down and thats not new. William Cobbett used to rant about the charcoal burners deforesting the weald of Kent in the 18th Century. Pretty well all the woodlands they cut are still woodlands today. I would agree the technical term for this woodland is not ancient woodland it is softwood plantation on ancient woodland site and the doormice will certainly not be living anywhere near the larch plantation. Despite all we now know about the damage caused by using nursery plantings the Woodland Trust plan to replace one monoculture with another of genetically homogenous oak and cherry probably complete with next decades imported disease. When will we learn it is far better to leave the place alone and allow natural regeneration to do it's job.

 

[Toddy]

Or.....how about instead of spending a fortune importing all those trees they simply ask those of us who routinely weed out hundreds of seedlings every year to save them, pot them up and pass them along to folks to nurture for a year or so, and then those are planted when known to be both healthy and viable.

Lots of people would happily contribute a few pounds in the name of a loved one, or even their pet, to see a true native woodland re-established.

Genetic diversity is a very good thing.

I live with my garden half under overhanging trees. If I don't weed them out I wouldn't get out the door in a couple of years.
We have birch, willow, ash, oak, rowan and holly all trying to come up in the flower beds and between the slabs right now the others, the hawthorn, elders, hazels, sycamores, etc., are just as prolific in springtime.

Robin's right though, left alone woods re-establish themselves quite effectively. Any open ground around here looks like a woodland in three or four years, even if the trees are only 3m high at that point.

M

 

[Harvestman]

To be fair to the Woodland Trust, they are of course aware of the issues raised by Robin Wood and others, and I understand that the trees that they plant will not be sourced overseas (because that isn't WT policy), and if the planting mix at Cefn Ila is anything to go by they will be anything but monocultural either. The normal mix is to plant with fast growing species like birch and woody shrubs like spindle, blackthorn, hawthorn and so on, together with a mix of slower growing species like oak, lime and beech. The tree mix then does its own succession as smaller species initially dominate but are gradually shaded out, and trees self-seed naturally as they tend to.

Whether the planted trees will be 'genetically homogenous' I couldn't say, but it will be a mix of species certainly.

I'll certainly be asking my manager about it, and will also relay any concerns that people raise, if only to get reassurance about it. Wentwood is very local to me, so it matters to me what happens there.

 

[Ogri the trog]

I am led to believe (through working at a sawmill) that much of the Larch will be turned into fencing and the bark (which hosts the disease) will be burnt as biomass on the site where the wood will be processed.

The stripping of the brash is likely to be done at the woodland site and burnt there to minimise cross contamination of other sites.

Ogri the trog

 

[Stamp]

When it was first discovered in Larch the trees were cut and burnt on site, movement restrictions have been relaxed now so I believe you are right. These trees need to cleared to prevent the cross contamination. We can only hope that the woodlands are restored with native species (which seems to be the plan) and our children will have great woodlands to play in.
Phytophthora R. has been around for some time now and organisations like the FC and WT need to go everything they can to prevents its spread. Lets hope they get it right!

 

[robin wood]

To be fair to the Woodland Trust, they are of course aware of the issues raised by Robin Wood and others, and I understand that the trees that they plant will not be sourced overseas (because that isn't WT policy), and if the planting mix at Cefn Ila is anything to go by they will be anything but monocultural either. The normal mix is to plant with fast growing species like birch and woody shrubs like spindle, blackthorn, hawthorn and so on, together with a mix of slower growing species like oak, lime and beech. The tree mix then does its own succession as smaller species initially dominate but are gradually shaded out, and trees self-seed naturally as they tend to.

Whether the planted trees will be 'genetically homogenous' I couldn't say, but it will be a mix of species certainly.

I'll certainly be asking my manager about it, and will also relay any concerns that people raise, if only to get reassurance about it. Wentwood is very local to me, so it matters to me what happens there.

The oak cherry came from the woodland trust statement. The trees will be bought in from nurseries. There is no tracking of these trees as there is say for livestock. If you ask for locally sourced or UK seed you have no way of checking that is what you are getting. Nurserymen have a habit of substituting the nearest thing they have in stock and omitting to tell you. I have seen plenty of examples of this over the years, I once planted a hedge with a standard hedgerow mix to find all the dogwood was variegated. Another friend working an NNR sent seed to be grown, the trees came back complete with pathogen which caused dieback when investigated it turned out the seed sent from the NNR had failed so they had substituted others. The fact is it's all driven by the publics love of planting trees and the use of that to raise funds. Note the press release going on about how much it's all going to cost and how there is no grant available. It could cost nothing, the mature larch should be valuable enough to cover the cost of felling and extraction then just leave it alone, do absolutely nothing, it would turn into far more interesting woodland from local genetically diverse seed and for free.

I was involved in the clean up after the 87 storm, the day after the National Trust launched the storm appeal and the money flowed in, my wages were paid by it. I cleared and planted solidly for three years. Oliver Rackham used to come down and tell us how we should leave it alone it was magnificent but the locals hated their horizontal wood and wanted it back as it was, not that that could be for another 250 years. We left 50 hectares and that is now magnificent. Probably the nearest thing in the UK to the much acclaimed natural forest of Białowieża in Poland. The area we cleared and planted is now boring dense even aged secondary woodland of little interest.

 

[Harvestman]

Excellent points Robin. You have far more experience of these things, and I'm nt involved directly, so I will certainly be asking questions about the issues of sourcing and natural regeneration.

Thanks for the pointers.