Thinning at Inishconnell – First Section

 

Timber stacked at roadside

Peace and quiet has now returned to the forest at Inishconnell. All the big machines have left and the harvested timber has been collected and stacked at the roadside. Everything is still again.

The thinning that was carried out over the last month was a first thinning. At twenty years old, it is a late first thinning. Being on relatively fertile soils, many of the trees have grown quite large.

Some willow, alder and ash made their own way in sometime after it was planted. The shelter afforded to them by the fast growing spruce was of great benefit to them initially, but over time the spruce competed too vigorously. Not being thinned, the canopy closed and the light was cut off to any less vigorous trees.

This ash (below) was lucky.  It forced its way up through the conifers and managed to keep its crown up there in the canopy with the spruce.

 

Tall and straight. This self-sown ash tree is marked for keeping.

Notice how straight it has grown with no pruning or early shaping.  It is this principle that is driving the management at Inishconnell.  By keeping the canopy above the new generation, they will be drawn up towards the light and will not develop lower branching. They will grow straight and tall like this ash has done.

There are small numbers of larch, Scots pine and Douglas fir to be found here and there. Because there was no forest manager keeping an eye on the forest, the sitka spruce essentially pushed out the minor species. Beech and poplar were planted at the same time as the spruce. The poplar surpassed the spruce, but the beech have struggled for over a decade to push up through the fast growing spruce. Some have succumbed and some have managed to stay alive.

 

Leaf and needle litter on the forest floor. – Helping to balance forest soils

To say the beech are poorly shaped would be a gross understatement. But I made the decision to favour the beech just the same. My reasons:

1) to favour all broadleaves to help alkalize the soil. The needles from the conifers are acidifying while the broadleaves are alkaline. Broadleaves of any species will help to re-alkalize the soil. Healthy, balanced soil means a healthy forest with high timber yields.

2) to favour broadleaves for aesthetics. Beech trees in the spring and autumn add colour to the woods and their dense leaf cover creates subtle movement and diverse shade and light.

3) to favour non-uniformity. A few of the beech might improve in form, now that they have been given a chance. They will have a different life span to the spruce so will create diverse gap sizes when they are felled, be it for firewood, – which is now of higher value than stake wood, – or for joinery.

4) to favour them because they are there and they are not spruce, – which there is more than enough of.

 

This first section of the forest was thinned heavily

This section where the beech were planted has been thinned heavily. It is surrounded on three sides by native woodland. Ash seedlings had already begun to find their way in around the edges of the plantation before we thinned. My feeling is that the broadleaves will move into this section now that there is so much filtered light available. I’m fairly certain ash will be the dominant species to come in first. Probably followed by oak, hazel, alder, willow, holly and mountain ash. There were not any really good larger conifers in this section, so I favoured smaller conifers of better form. Hopefully these smaller trees will grow well with the new light levels and will help to draw up whatever comes in through nature.

 

Ash seedling poised for new growth. Wow, is it going to get a surprise when it wakes up from dormancy to find itself bathed in new light.