Yesterday I couldn’t resist the temptation to drop in to Inishconnell forest to see if anything is stirring yet after the onslaught of the thinning operations back in December.  

All is quiet in the forest after the disruption of the thinning operations in December. There is a dusting of soft green as the broadleaves begin to leaf up.

I thought I could hear my Pro Silva Europe colleagues chuckling as I scrambled eagerly through the branches and brash, peering down to look for any sign of transformation.  Those more experienced foresters, – by this I mean often third generation – don’t bother looking for regeneration after such a thinning.  After so many years of experience, or from the experience of their wise university professors, – they know it will come. But for us here, – we are just learning.  And for me, it is my first conifer forest to work at managing for transformation.  So, while it’s not exactly doubt I feel, there is a strong element of wanting some reward for the bravery of charging in and making such dramatic change to my clients conifer stand.  

Nature didn’t disappoint.  There are tiny ash seedlings entering the forest in their thousands.

New life in the forest: - Ash seedling opening itself out to the light.

Inishconnell is bordered on three sides by native woodland, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that once the dark conifer forest canopy has been opened up, light is flooding in and seeds that have waited for many years are now taking full advantage. Yet I’m still amazed to see such delicate new seedlings making their way up through the tough, prickly brash that now litters the forest floor. Miracles happening before my eyes. Really wonderful.

Delicate ash seedlings weaving their way up to the light through this tangle of twigs and branches.

Ash is the dominant species to arrive in here.  It is a real ash site.  But I also noticed some hawthorn and holly coming in.

Hawthorn seedling enjoying a patch where there is more light.

Many of my old friends laugh at me now, remembering how I loathed those dark sitka spruce plantations and the resultant clearfell sites that follow in their wake.  I guess my feelings haven’t really changed in that regard, but now I see the potential of sitka spruce plantations that never occurred to me when I started Crann way back in 1986.  It took going to the launch of Pro Silva Ireland nine years ago and hearing Prof. Hans Jurgen Otto say how lucky we are to have  ”these fine stands of pioneer forests” that made something shift under the ground of my being. Put simply: Hardwoods need shelter. Conifers give shelter. Bling! I got it.

And now it’s just great to be putting those nine years of learning into practice and yesterday I saw the first results.

The base of a sitka spruce, and its successor, - the mighty ash

It is just a pure stand of sitka spruce. There were two lines of poplar in it, but no other broadleaves apart from the occasional ash that had moved in of its own accord. The soil is fertile and the trees have done well in this section.

This is how the forest looked before thinning

Here’s how the marking was done:

Using biodegradable coloured tape, the trees for keeping were marked in yellow and those to be felled were marked in red.  I tried quicker methods, but ended up back with the tape.  Tins of spray paint are commonly used for marking trees, but I really didn’t like breathing in the fumes and wasn’t too sure that the used tins wouldn’t end up in landfill. Using a paint tin and brush was too messy and also time consuming, as really all sides of the tree need to be marked so the person way up on the harvesting machine can see the marking clearly from whichever direction he/she is coming from.

Trees were marked with red tape for taking out

I selected trees of good, straight form with finer branching.  I tried to select a mixture of sizes, some large trees, some small and some in between.  I didn’t pay much attention to spacing.

The site was not cultivated prior to planting. The trees were planted directly into the ground and the site is relatively sheltered. All these factors mean that the risk of windthrow is slight. Even so, I looked for well rooted trees to keep.

It would not be practical to mark a first thinning in this way normally.  In the next article I’ll tell you about the system that is more commonly used.  But I wanted to mark out a couple of the sections myself just to practice getting my eye in and to be able to compare some marked sections with some where the system is used.

Second section after thinning

There will always be ‘mistakes’ made in forestry thinning, but I think the greatest mistake of all is not to thin. Just look at these optimistic little ash seedlings hoping for some light to be let in so they too might grow on and fully express themselves.

Optimistic ash seedlings bathed in new sunlight

 

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.

Have a look at the following photos and you will get more of an idea about this part of the work.

(Above) After harvesting the trees, the logs are then left on the forest floor for the forwarder to collect.

(Above) The forwarder at work collecting piles of logs left at the side of the extraction rack by the harvesting machine (see previous article).

(Above) The long arm of the forwarder reaches across three lines of trees to collect the harvested logs.

The giant claw of the forwarder releases its load of logs into the trailer.

Padraig O’Reilly and his forwarder.

(Above) Padraig stacks the logs in their size categories at roadside for collection.

View from the harvesting machine as it enters the forest. Wesley guides the machine towards the first extraction line. See how small the trees look from up here.

The thinning at Inisconnell is progressing and as the trees are felled, the light is flooding into the forest.  Wesley is an experienced machine driver and  he does little or no damage to the remaining trees.  This is so important as these trees will not only be used to bring in revenue for the forest owner  but also will serve to nurse up the seedlings that will come into the forest over time.

            

View from behind. As the machine works its way through the forest, light begins to flood in to the trees.

Working with a harvesting machine as opposed to a chainsaw operator, change happens fast.  As the harvested trees are felled, the machine strips off the side branches in one swift movement.  These are then piled behind the machine to minimize damage when the heavy logs are collected.  These tracks will become the permanent ‘extraction racks’ for future thinning operations.

            

Logs placed along the edge of the forest rack, waiting to be collected at the next stage of thinning.

You might be thinking to yourself that this method isn’t exactly ‘close-to-nature’. I’ll be writing more about this in future posts when the operations in the forest have finished and there is more time for sitting at the computer!

            

Harvesting machine at the end of the working day. There’s not much ‘close-to-nature’ about this beast!