The team were back out this week with Cumbria Woodlands and the Coppice Co-op undertaking some new work thinning native broadleaf trees.
When trees are planted, the work doesn’t stop there. Continued management of woodland areas is essential, so the WCH team were called back into action to assist.
Thinning the trees in these plantations improves the quality of the woodland and the trees within it. The high density of trees in young broadleaf plantations encourages fast upwards growth and reduced branch size. As the trees age and grow they begin to shade each other, it’s important to remove lower grade trees to allow the stronger and more favourable trees flourish.
The felled trees weren’t going to waste, the team at Cumbria woodlands will be turning the wood from these trees into charcoal in the new year.
After getting a safety talk from main man Jamie the team got stuck in with cutting up the felled trees. The logs were then taken to the bottom of the woodland ready to be taken away.
Counting the rings of the tree can help determine its age, with 22 rings counted here it shows that this tree was 22 years old. The tighter the rings, the slower the growth – the rings on the outside of this tree were much closer together which signals slower growth in recent years.
Andrew from the Coppice Co-op takes James and Matty through the process of felling a tree.
Our bountiful haul at the end of the day. Ready to be turned into Charcoal.
