The Woodland Trust are employing mechanical harvesting at Penn Woods, Buckinghamshire to primarily remove juvenille larch trees growing in what they perceive to be ancient deciduous woodland. The tree cutting is undertaken by a mechical timber harvester -
- fiited with a harvesting head that both grips and cuts selected trees -
- before the tree is allowed to fall in a controlled fashion.
The tree stem is then drawn through the cutting head where it is debranched (snedded) and cut to length (bucked).
A medium sized timber forwarded fitted with a mechanical grab arm then picks up the cut stems and transports these to the timber stack.
The timber stack contains tree stems that have laid in the woodland for over a year where they have been stored to allow them to dry down before being taken away to a contractors yard where they will be mechanically chipped to produce fuelwood chips for use in large wood boilers.
An area that was previously mechancially harvested in Penn Wood over a year ago was inspected where it was found that the lop and top harvesting brash is left in place to help reduce deer predation of natural tree regenerated seedlings and saplings of deciduous trees with mainly birch regrowth in evidence. Some windthrow of remaining trees was evident.
This woodland management plan appears to be somewhat wasteful in as much juvenille larch trees are not being allowed to grow into useable timber tree sizes with instead a process of ethnic cleansing of coniferous trees from what is believed to be a former deciduous woodland being pursued where the main component of the woodland is now beech - a tree that currently has limited marketability for its timber and is especially one that is known to be a tree subject to serious damage by the grey squirrel.
Ken Hume OWG
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