Fifteen year old ash plantation where the demonstration took place.
Last week I travelled down to Inistoige, County Kilkenny to attend the National Forestry Demonstration on Broadleaf Management and Thinning. It was run by Teagasc, Coford and the Forest Service jointly. It was an extremely well organized event and there was a lot of interest. There were mini buses to ferry people to and from the site on rotation. It worked very well.
The first stop was an ash plantation and there was an information board placed at the entrance as we got off the bus, giving details of the site history, soil types, etc:
Information board showing details about ash plantation.
Most of the people attending were farmers who had planted some broadleaved trees on their land. People showed such keen interest to learn how to manage their trees.
During the mid 1980′s I used to travel around the country giving talks and slide presentations on the subject of growing broadleaved trees (no power point then, and actually no young broadleaved plantations either!). I very often came away thinking oh well, we can’t expect farmers to suddenly become foresters over night. The truth of this really struck home again as I stood in the group last week listening to the questions being asked. It’s so great that Teagasc are now providing such valuable courses on managing broadleaves. And it’s so great that COFORD are carrying out research into broadleaves and that they are now grant aided by the Forest Service.
It takes time to learn about growing trees in a country like Ireland whose main land-based income has been derived from agriculture for so long. Teagasc are very much at the ‘coal face’ in helping the farming community make the transition into forestry. Days like this one are free and are very helpful.
Mary Ryan from Teagasc said that in Ireland growing broadleaves is new to everyone and that we only began planting them as forest trees a little over a decade ago. Broadleaves were always seen as purely for amenity, but now they are being encouraged as potentially commercial species. Of course learning is made harder by the fact that there are no mature commercial broadleaved forests to learn from here. We have to either travel or invite in foreign expertise (as we do with Pro Silva Ireland), or try to learn as we go.
Mary Ryan teaching about how to thin the ash plantation.
We were given a brief marking exercise to do, – always very useful when teaching about thinning trees. Nothing like some hands on to help us remember what was learned. And then we were shown an area of the forest that had already been thinned and people were asked to notice the extra light in the forest, compared to the unthinned area.
The group was given a marking exercise to do in the ash plantation
We visited an oak plantation on the same farm. I came away thinking that it’s nothing short of a miracle that there are now 15 year old broadleaved forests that we can stand in and observe and learn how to manage. For Irish forestry to move into broadleaves is a big step and one that is too easy to take for granted.
While the trees were all growing very well, I couldn’t help thinking how poor it looked in terms of biodiversity and forest health with no pioneer species to liven things up and help the oak along. I suppose I’m used to seeing more diverse forests and am not that familiar with plantations of just the one species anymore. Hopefully in time the teaching will be to favour diversity, regeneration and to aim towards permanent forests rather than crops. Many people still think that if you don’t harvest the timber in one fell swoop, then the forest can’t be commercial. But I suppose that learning will take time to evolve too, as will the forests themselves.
Oak plantation on the same farm.
Related posts:
- Broadleaves DO Grow In Leitrim – Part 1
- Thinning at Inishconnell – First Section
- Thinning the Cabin Woods
- Thinning at Inishconnell – Second Section
- Forest at Inishconnell – First Thinning
Tags: Teagasc Forest Day
We have some of the best growing conditions in Europe for broadleaf trees, so why has it taken so long to work out that there is huge commercial potential for producing hardwoods? Because the return from forestry takes so long to realise. How to get round this? Reward and encourage CCF rather than clearfell harvesting.
Thanks Peter for your comment. Yes, change happens slowly in forestry. I think the solution also lies in people working together to develop local timber markets from firewood right through to the eighty plus year old timbers and everything in between. Grant aid should be there to help bridge gaps, but not to solve the problems. I believe that solutions can be found by local people at ground level working together. Now THAT is a challenge! And of course once a plantation is converted to close-to-nature/CCF, – thinnings are no longer an issue as only large timbers are harvested, leaving the small dimension trees to grow on to their full potential.