Recent completion of some delayed first thinning.
A recent job (aside from battling the unusual summer weather) has seen us completing a first thinning of a hardwood plantation established in the 90's. By completing this work we have achieved a number of factors:
- removed poorer trees from the crop
- given remaining trees more space to grow/expand into
- provisionally identified final crop trees to be favoured in later thinnings
- improved the access for wildlife management
- improved accessibility into the wood by opening up a track and allowing it to dry out
- extracted a the timber which will now go into the firewood market (providing a return to the landowner)
- not made a mess!
The work was completed by hand cutting racks into the wood, brash was tidied to the side of these to facilitate subsequent access and keep the site tidy. A further selective thin was then conducted inbetween the racks and this timber recovered tot he racks. All the felled timber was then extracted to the edge of the woodland using our alpine tractor and 3t forwarding trailer, (minimising any damage and rutting in the wood) and then we brought in larger equipment to move it to roadside.
From roadside the timber will be sold for firewood but it is now in an accessible place for timber lorries to get to.
Pond regeneration
Continual works include the restoration/regeneration of some farm ponds.
We have been cutting back overgrown trees (mainly willow) from the edge of the pond and extracting them to let light back into the pond as well as stopping leaf litter and branches from being deposited in the pond.The photo's below give some idea as to the start and finish points (there is still a bit to do though!).
For more images of these and of other works please visit our facebook page here