thank you for the info and work brother! I am 60 and trying to learn coppicing here in the western Oregon USA rainforest keep 'em coming please... be safe... Ted
Hello we just got a woodland in Devon and am just embarking on the plan to do willow coppicing for hedgelaying materials. Love your video hope your still at it x
In response to the question below, we have probably near an acre dotted about that we use for firewood, but our main coppice is about half an acre. Yes willow is good, especially superwillow ( aquatica).
Some people viewing this seemed to miss the point that they were spending no carbon to gather the wood nor cut it. No doubt they return any ash and charcoal to the soil, but the major carbon offset is from the regrowth of the trees absorbing carbon as they grow. Interesting way of life they lead, eh?
Regarding carbon neutrality, if you have slightly less efficient combustion and produce a small amount of charcoal, which you dig into the soil in your garden with the ash, it's not the same as true fossilization, but it sequesters the carbon for a thousand years or so, which has to count for something. How close you are to neutral depends on how much charcoal you produce. It shouldn't take too much.
I wonder sometimes about the nature of British winters and what they might have to do with the development of the whole coppice husbandry system. I'm in Michigan in the US and when our leaves are down and the trees dormant, it's pretty likely that there will be snow on the ground and temperatures quite uncomfortable for these woodland activities ;)
Ours are nearly all Douglas Fir but you can use any wood at all. Lower down where you might get rain splashing would be good for oak or chestnut. Cedar is great, also all pines and also woods with a lot of air like poplar or aspen. More info on thatroundhouse.info.
You should use the saw to establish the bottom and extent of the notch, then cut out the v shape of the notch with the ax. No horizontal chop necessary.
My Great Grandfather explained to me how his father made walking canes from what was called "second growth" hickory, in Kentucky. As he explained it, this second growth wood would have been what you would call "coppiced" wood. There are many species of hickory in Kentucky, but I don't know if the the old man used any particular one. As I am now 66 years old and my Great Grand Daddy told me this in '79, it would have been in the late 1800s or early 1900s when this was being done. At that time far more timbering was done (and far more timber available) and hickory was prevalent. I doubt that the second growth wood would have been grown (or "coppiced") deliberately, just utilized as an eventual after product of the initial cuttings. I doubt that you could find much second growth hickory today. There is still a fair amount of hickory left in Kentucky, but it is very valuable, and I doubt many property owners would be cutting them down if not necessary. Is hickory native to Great Britain or been introduced there? It is extremely versatile.
Raymond III Whitson nice one.No, Hickory is not native to Britain. Best walking sticks come from blackthorn, but I haven’t heard of blackthorn being coppiced for this.
@@ToneWrench Thanks Mr. Wrench. I think this coppicing you are doing is great, and I have never heard it being spoken of here in the US, though perhaps some of our arborist folk practice it. If I ever get the opportunity I would like to try it on some hickory, or other species we have here. I live in South Carolina now, and the revered trees here are, of course, the palmetto and the Southern live oak. We do have hickory also. Good luck with future endeavors Sir.
My question with coppicing is do you ever get trunks as thick as the one you feels from the coppice or do you just get a lot of scrawny, thin pole-sized logs that aren't good for much other than firewood in a rocket mass heater?
have you ever worked out how much area is required for growing enough wood for fuel, I have two large allotments the one is very wet most of the time so I thought about growing willow
Hi Tony, interesting video. Have you ever coppiced Rowan,Whitebeam or Wild Service trees? I know they are not common coppice species but can't find any definitive info online. Thanks
jfonixed hi there. I haven't, but reckon that they would be OK. I read recently that why most of our native broadleaf trees regrow from damage is because they evolved to do so during the thousands of years when our landscape contained elephants.
Hi Tony, thanks for getting back. That's an interesting bit of info regarding the elephants. I live near the coast and am trying out a few trees in a v small coppice in the garden. I will see how they grow back in few years when I coppice them ;)
spandit please do, but it doesn’t have a lot of btus per cord. That doesn’t matter especially if you have a hot stove or furnace. Actually since I’m five years late, how have they grown?
Why didn't you cut the tree that was leaning over on it? The leaning tree looked unhealthy while the tree you cut down look rather healthy and may have been a producer of seed for future trees.
Doing it manual is slow but rewarding. P.S. I honour the “paying it forward” craze where the purpose is to increase everybody’s subscription by subscribing to each others channel. I subscribed to your channel and will subscribe to anyones channel that comments “paying it forward” on any of my videos and subscribes to my channel. Pass it on. Take care Ray
@RivenBloak wood isn't a fossil fuel, if its sourced locally then the petrol from sawing & transport is negligible and there are now compacted sawdust chip burners that can get up to around 90% efficiency or so.
It is carbon neutral so long as the same amount grows each year as you burn. If more grows, ie more grows than you burn due to the coppicing process and more shoots forming, then it is carbon negative, which means it is drawing some carbon from the atmosphere. This can be done also by making or building things with the wood rather than burning all of it, and is called sequestering the carbon. A complication is that a big tree takes up much more carbon than a young or coppiced tree, so to be carbon neutral you need to leave enough big stems to grow as big trees, or standards.
@1vnman On balance I would go for ash unless your field is very wet. For a hedge try mixing hazel, hawthorn, plum, damson, ash, oak and even a bit of sycamore (I'm a wood turner)
So beautiful! Thanks for posting and hope you’re both well and enjoying coppicing still :-))
thank you for the info and work brother!
I am 60 and trying to learn coppicing here in the western Oregon
USA rainforest
keep 'em coming please...
be safe... Ted
You have thousands of lumbermen there, you could learn from them.
Just stumbled upon your video. Really informative and great to see somebody respecting the natural environment :)
You are British that means you are intelligent
What a splendid wildlife habitat! The birds there must be amazing.
10 years on and just found the vid..
Thank-you Tony.
Look at all those sticks and twigs. he'd never run out of material for a rocket stove! good video,very informative!
Hello we just got a woodland in Devon and am just embarking on the plan to do willow coppicing for hedgelaying materials. Love your video hope your still at it x
In response to the question below, we have probably near an acre dotted about that we use for firewood, but our main coppice is about half an acre. Yes willow is good, especially superwillow ( aquatica).
Looks like a hard life but at least you're f....... free, free from the bullshit fake life.
He Tony nice to see you here and to see your home and thanks for the info .
I still love my chainsaw tho ...
love your home
atb
steve
Love the background noises of chainsaws while you saw that tree down! Have a word with your neighbours, I've heard about that lot!
Ntakirutimana pie
it is good video because it help to know haw to cut tree without damaging anther tree
Some people viewing this seemed to miss the point that they were spending no carbon to gather the wood nor cut it. No doubt they return any ash and charcoal to the soil, but the major carbon offset is from the regrowth of the trees absorbing carbon as they grow. Interesting way of life they lead, eh?
Regarding carbon neutrality, if you have slightly less efficient combustion and produce a small amount of charcoal, which you dig into the soil in your garden with the ash, it's not the same as true fossilization, but it sequesters the carbon for a thousand years or so, which has to count for something. How close you are to neutral depends on how much charcoal you produce. It shouldn't take too much.
There is a reason that the big crosscut saw is called a Misery Whip.
Thanks for the info and please keep the vids coming, great stuff. Dave, Australia.
A chainsaw makes a lot more sense. You can get electric ones. You can even attach a wood gassifier to one.
Cop picking works been doing it for decades. I go back to an area I logged and the new trees are sprouting
I wonder sometimes about the nature of British winters and what they might have to do with the development of the whole coppice husbandry system. I'm in Michigan in the US and when our leaves are down and the trees dormant, it's pretty likely that there will be snow on the ground and temperatures quite uncomfortable for these woodland activities ;)
Luckily, it’s not compulsory.
That place absolutely supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Great video. What species of tree is used for your cordwood walls if you don't mind me asking?
Ours are nearly all Douglas Fir but you can use any wood at all. Lower down where you might get rain splashing would be good for oak or chestnut. Cedar is great, also all pines and also woods with a lot of air like poplar or aspen. More info on thatroundhouse.info.
You should use the saw to establish the bottom and extent of the notch, then cut out the v shape of the notch with the ax. No horizontal chop necessary.
My Great Grandfather explained to me how his father made walking canes from what was called "second growth" hickory, in Kentucky. As he explained it, this second growth wood would have been what you would call "coppiced" wood. There are many species of hickory in Kentucky, but I don't know if the the old man used any particular one. As I am now 66 years old and my Great Grand Daddy told me this in '79, it would have been in the late 1800s or early 1900s when this was being done. At that time far more timbering was done (and far more timber available) and hickory was prevalent. I doubt that the second growth wood would have been grown (or "coppiced") deliberately, just utilized as an eventual after product of the initial cuttings. I doubt that you could find much second growth hickory today. There is still a fair amount of hickory left in Kentucky, but it is very valuable, and I doubt many property owners would be cutting them down if not necessary. Is hickory native to Great Britain or been introduced there? It is extremely versatile.
Raymond III Whitson nice one.No, Hickory is not native to Britain. Best walking sticks come from blackthorn, but I haven’t heard of blackthorn being coppiced for this.
@@ToneWrench Thanks Mr. Wrench. I think this coppicing you are doing is great, and I have never heard it being spoken of here in the US, though perhaps some of our arborist folk practice it. If I ever get the opportunity I would like to try it on some hickory, or other species we have here. I live in South Carolina now, and the revered trees here are, of course, the palmetto and the Southern live oak. We do have hickory also. Good luck with future endeavors Sir.
My question with coppicing is do you ever get trunks as thick as the one you feels from the coppice or do you just get a lot of scrawny, thin pole-sized logs that aren't good for much other than firewood in a rocket mass heater?
D.W. Stratton we leave one or two stems from each stool to grow big again, so yes, they do grow big and wide and straight.
Do you live there or is it just a get away ?
have you ever worked out how much area is required for growing enough wood for fuel, I have two large allotments the one is very wet most of the time so I thought about growing willow
mark williams you could do willow or try green ash maybe
Have you ever used a Japanese temagari saw for lighter cutting/trimming? I find them much easier to use than standard "push" saws.
chain saw better
All the Bowsaws like that I have used cut both ways. So if you want to use it as a pull saw knock yourself out.
Hi Tony, interesting video. Have you ever coppiced Rowan,Whitebeam or Wild Service trees? I know they are not common coppice species but can't find any definitive info online. Thanks
jfonixed hi there. I haven't, but reckon that they would be OK. I read recently that why most of our native broadleaf trees regrow from damage is because they evolved to do so during the thousands of years when our landscape contained elephants.
Hi Tony, thanks for getting back. That's an interesting bit of info regarding the elephants. I live near the coast and am trying out a few trees in a v small coppice in the garden. I will see how they grow back in few years when I coppice them ;)
Still didn't understand what coppicing was , and afraid to ask what a compost toilet is or what is used for ?
He is in a hell of a hurry with that wedge to split. I always found it quicker to tap slower and let the wedge do the work not the hammer!
Hi i think that notch you cut to fell the tree is called a bear mouth well that is what we call it lol
those would make some dandy hiking sticks
This video sounds like it was made in the 1980's.
The Black Vegetable . Hi, what, you mean no naff piano muzak soundtrack?
@@ToneWrench lol
I could hear a chainsaw in the background
Yet all the literature says alder is poor firewood..! I'm planting a few hundred of them
It's not the best firewood, hornbeam and ash are better, but it makes first-rate charcoal.
spandit please do, but it doesn’t have a lot of btus per cord. That doesn’t matter especially if you have a hot stove or furnace. Actually since I’m five years late, how have they grown?
Yeah Alders nice its especially good in wet and Nitrogen poor areas since its a nitrogen fixing species.
That was a good watch, thank you.
Have you ever coppiced Eucalyptus?
Alex Hogan nope sorry.
@@BHB-vf5tn From what ive seen they do coppice quite well.
Why didn't you cut the tree that was leaning over on it? The leaning tree looked unhealthy while the tree you cut down look rather healthy and may have been a producer of seed for future trees.
Both trees came down.
Very nice video. I cringed when you decided to use your crotch to hold the head of that ax while you were sharpening your saw, though. o.O
Doing it manual is slow but rewarding.
P.S. I honour the “paying it forward” craze where the purpose is to increase everybody’s subscription by subscribing to each others channel. I subscribed to your channel and will subscribe to anyones channel that comments “paying it forward” on any of my videos and subscribes to my channel. Pass it on. Take care Ray
@RivenBloak
wood isn't a fossil fuel, if its sourced locally then the petrol from sawing & transport is negligible and there are now compacted sawdust chip burners that can get up to around 90% efficiency or so.
Helmet, if a limb falls... 🚑
remind me why you don't use chain saws?
2:02 No, you know it's sharp when you can shave with it.
Its not a razor though.
It is carbon neutral so long as the same amount grows each year as you burn. If more grows, ie more grows than you burn due to the coppicing process and more shoots forming, then it is carbon negative, which means it is drawing some carbon from the atmosphere. This can be done also by making or building things with the wood rather than burning all of it, and is called sequestering the carbon. A complication is that a big tree takes up much more carbon than a young or coppiced tree, so to be carbon neutral you need to leave enough big stems to grow as big trees, or standards.
@1vnman On balance I would go for ash unless your field is very wet. For a hedge try mixing hazel, hawthorn, plum, damson, ash, oak and even a bit of sycamore (I'm a wood turner)
Hi Matthew Jones. Yes we live here all the time.