Coppicing trees for first time - some advice when too?

[Daggers_Jones]

Hoping this is the right forum for this question.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience of coppicing?
We planted 100 trees just over 4 years ago as an experiment on our land to see whether they would grow and to provide wood for our woodburner. Well all but 3 have so we are starting to see a little coppice / wood. It's proving a great hit with wildlife too as we have badges rooting round and foxes now . Think it helps it is attached to our small orchard so animal love the windfalls
So question is when should you start trimming the trees? We are thinking a couple more years, but any advice would be good. BTW we have lime, silver birch, willow, hazel (got a harvest of cob nuts last autumn).
Thanks

 

[didicoy]

What species have you planted? I've coppiced hazel on a 5 to 7 year rotation for hedging binders on good growing sites. I've left some areas for over 12 years for fencing stakes and in poor growing soils. Willow once established can be as short as 2 to 4 years. Depending on what you consider ideal for your burning appliance and how you intend to process/harvest could determine size required, time to grow, along with species. i have some 6 year old willow,, planted as whips that's now 17foot high and average stem diameter of 1 " to 2"

 

[Macaroon]

Double post, sorry.

 

[Macaroon]

I'd leave the Lime out of your plans for fuel use; it doesn't burn well at all, producing little to no heat and producing a stinking smoke that can stop other woods burning properly. It'd probably be worth more left to mature
and used for/ sold to carving and turning interests.

Opinion is split on the above, but that's my experience of it and that of others I know.

 

[didicoy]

Sorry I hadn't noticed you included the species list underneath. If you have cobs now it is safe to say that they are established. I would be tempted to play around. Coppice some this winter and some the next. Watch how it regrows. I found with the age of the coppiced stool, the yearly growth rate improves. I coppiced old neglected sites. The willow coppice I harvest for my binders was planted some 18 years ago as part of a farm/community biomass crop. So the growth rate is vastly improved due to the farmer pumping water and slurry onto the site during the year. The willow coppiced I planted 6 years ago will now benefit from harvesting and putting into rotation. This willow is for willow sculptures and craftwork. I will try post a photo later.
Lime can contribute to the quality of local honey. It can also be useful for making cordage.

 

[spandit]

Cut off stuff that's big enough to use. I doubt the hazel is thick enough yet - mine is nearly 4 years old and nowhere near big enough for logs. I think it's normally cut on an 8 year cycle.

 

[Daggers_Jones]

Thanks for that information on lime. not something we were aware of

 

[Daggers_Jones]

Thanks for this didicoy.
One of the reasons for going for lime was it's proximity to our small orchard and fruit beds.
Long term plan is to combine fruit and orchard with a couple of bee hives.
Oh and hope of planting some cider apple trees

 

[milius2]

Hello. Very interesting thread. My personal experience is very limited in hazel or willow. I'd be more than happy to plant these in numbers on my property. The early trials gave close to zero results, as my attempts were very welcomed by local beavers and they had some wonderful fresh branches for the winters... Then I had some excellent meat!! But I have never fenced these low value wild trees and planted them too close to the beaver. Anyway, lime, maple, ash, black alder they grow successfully in some parts for 15 years now and are starting to look like a forest from the distance. I don't do much to these unless they end up in a way to a road or something. I trim them up a little if i need to walk through. Lime is especially good tree and is second from my favourite birch. The smells and the feel in the summer. Always full of sounds and life, so thumbs up for that. And I also found, that you can never have enough of semi-bushes like guelder-rose and elderberry. the elderberry especially is very beautiful during the summer.

I'll be watching over this post

 

[slowworm]

Long term plan is to combine fruit and orchard with a couple of bee hives.

If they're anything like ours you're bees will probably zoom off elsewhere to forage.

On a serious note doesn't lime take a long time to flower? Bees will forage for pollen on hazel at a time when it's very important.

As for coppicing, I'm not sure there's any problem with coppicing too early, after all you're often encouraged to heavily prune one year whips when planting. It would be a matter of when they're big enough to get something useful from them.