I had gone along not thinking I would win any award, as the woodlands I had entered in the Biodiversity section are young and not very developed yet. I was so pleasantly surprised when, after the awards were passed out, my name was called at the end to receive the Special Judges Award.

The RDS/Forest Service Irish Forestry Awards play a great role in encouraging people involved in growing forests to keep up the good work and they help us all increase our standards just that bit more.  Any woodland owner can enter.  Check out the RDS  website.

Here’s what they said:

Judges Special Award Jan Alexander

“Finally our last award of the evening is the Judge’s Special Award.  This Award is intended to give recognition to the exceptional skill and dedication shown by a either an individual or group that the judging panel have encountered during their inspections. This Award is intended to recognise their achievement and also to provide encouragement to many other aspiring foresters who are considering planting trees on parts of their land.

I am pleased to announce that the winner of this year’s Judges Special Award is Jan Alexander of Bawnboy, Co. Cavan.

The judges were very impressed with the work that has been carried out on Jan’s plantation and by the “close to nature methods” that are being applied in the management of her forest.  The judges also noted the minimum interventionist approach that Jan has adopted and the fact that no chemical weed control was used on the plantation.

Since Jan moved to Ireland from Australia in the late 1970’s she has had a profound impact on the Forestry sector here, through her work both as founder of Crann, Ireland’s leading voluntary tree organisation dedicated to the promotion and protection of our trees, hedgerows and woodlands to her current position as chairperson of Pro Silva Ireland.

Jan’s passionate interest in Forestry has been an inspiration to all and she has been one of the driving forces behind the planting of broadleaf trees in Ireland.  It is in recognition of her major contribution to forestry both at a local and national level in Ireland that the judging panel has chosen Jan Alexander for this year’s Judge’s Special Award.  I would like to call on the Minister to present Jan with this specially commissioned trophy from the award winning Irish wood turner Seamus Cassidy.”

Forestry Advisor Marianne Lyons from Ballyhaise addresses participants on safety issues before we leave the bus for the site

The main focus for the day was on showing farmers the various methods of harvesting timber from their forests at first thinning stage.  For me, reading up on practical work like this just doesn’t do it.  I need to actually see what is being done and how, in order to grasp something new, so this kind of demonstration day was very useful.  The Teagasc staff had planned out various sections of their own forests for thinning and at each section the device (or creature!) to be used was set up and ready to go. 

Extracting hardwood thinnings on steep slope using horse extraction.

The first stop was horse extraction by Murray Tree Care Ltd. in Monastrevin, Co. Kildare (Tel: 045 523582). As the timber to be hauled was on a high slope, it was easy work dragging the logs down to the road. (For images of heavy horse work, check out Tom Nixon’s Trojan Heavy Horses. )

Because the workshop was aimed at helping farmers, the majority of other methods of extraction demonstrated were using ordinary farm tractors with simple attachments:

Tractor and grabber dragging first thinnings from conifer plantation

Farm tractor and buck rake carrying logs out.

Most of the action happened in conifers, but there was also a small stand of mainly sycamore to learn from. Information boards at roadside gave simple thinning technique guidelines.

Information board standing at the broadleaved site

If you’ve been following this blog site over the months, you will have gathered that my interest in forestry is in permanent commercial forests.  I see all plantations as having the potential to become permanent, evolving forests, yielding timber and at the same time increasing in tree height, diversity and value over time through close-to-nature management (or CCF – Continuous Cover Forestry). Forest plantations that are treated as single species crops to be eventually cut down and replanted, as is currently the teaching here, just doesn’t attract my interest.  At Pro Silva Europe forest outings, for example, you just don’t hear the word ‘crop’ used at all. The word speaks of agriculture, not silviculture, and as such it is easy to understand why it is used so widely in this predominantly agricultural country.

 So it was refreshing for me when a young man in my group asked if Teagasc were planning to take into account the seedlings that were starting to show themselves on the floor beneath the sycamore trees.  Dr. Ian Short of UCD/COFORD was quick to ask if the young man meant a Continuous Cover Forestry approach.  Yes, that’s what he meant.  A brief discussion took place, but I detected that most of the farmers present weren’t really aware of this approach yet. However Dr. Short was obviously familiar with CCF. He said that his personal view is that he wouldn’t be surprised if clearfelling would be prevented by the time the young stand of sycamore we were looking at reached maturity.  

I thought back to that wonderful Pro Silva trip to Slovenia where clearfelling is already forbidden, and has been for many years. If Dr. Short’s hunch is correct, I wondered if we’ll plod along in what to me is such a limited manner until legislation forces change or will we show some initiative and embrace a wonderful forestry opportunity at the earliest possible chance?  Time will tell.

Seamus Kelly from Louth demonstrating with his mobile sawmill how logs can be sawn and saved on site.

Another excellent aspect of the day at Ballyhaise was to be found in the shed and yards. There were many useful displays of forestry tools and machinery and others involved in farm forestry. Here above is a mobile sawmill showing how logs can be planked into timber for use on the farm or for sale on site.  

Below, Marion and Eltjo Vanderlaan, familiar faces at forestry events throughout Ireland, displaying their Silky Saws for pruning and shaping forest trees.  These beautiful saws are so easy to use and often make the difference between firewood and high grade timber.

Marion and Eltjo Vanderlaan with their Silky Saws

No farm forestry event would be complete without an information stand from the Irish Farmers Association.  Here is Geraldine O’Sullivan ready and able for answering quesitons about the IFA’s activities.

Geraldine O'Sullivan, IFA Farm Forestry Development Officer at the IFA stand

As I pulled away from Ballyhaise, watching all the various farm jeeps driving off home, I thought of this brave new start at building a forest culture here in Ireland, in this country more famous for its agriculture.  Demonstration days like this are so important towards helping that culture develop.

And I thought of the trip I made to Freudenstadt in the Black Forest, Germany with Pro Silva Europe last year, where forestry and timber is so totally integrated into the culture. 

Here are a few images to leave you with:

Two farms belonging to two brothers, each with their own commercial forest

Various sizes of homegrown timber air drying ready for use on the farm buildings when it's needed.

These farm forest are highly commercial, bringing in vital revenue to help keep the farm in profit.

Hot tub in the farm garden home made from a single log with simple boiler. - A must for easing out sore muscles of any hard working farmer!

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.