Planting for Firewood

kippy

Hi all,
Apologies if this is a crazy topic.
Myself and my brother in law are currently looking into the feasibility of planting trees in a bit of land for use as firewood in the future. Would this be a worthwhile idea (bearing in mind that we would intend covering the costs involved between a few people who would then benefit from the firewood in years to come)
What type of trees would best suit?
Kippy

Oldtree

It really depends on your site. Sounds like you would be interested in short rotation maby willow or poplar or ash.

have a look at this chat:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056264024

Rovi

There's a fair bit of enthusiasm/promotion of eucalyptus as a solid fuel going on these days too, might be worth investigating.
A couple of articles on the subject:
http://www.onlythebiz.com/eucalyptus-as-a-potential-wood-fuel-renewable-energy
http://www.independent.ie/farming/branch-out-with-eucalyptus-2441507.html

Commercial outfit heavily involved:
http://www.dplant.ie/Eucalyptus.htm

locky76

kippy wrote: »

Hi all,
Apologies if this is a crazy topic.
Myself and my brother in law are currently looking into the feasibility of planting trees in a bit of land for use as firewood in the future. Would this be a worthwhile idea (bearing in mind that we would intend covering the costs involved between a few people who would then benefit from the firewood in years to come)
What type of trees would best suit?
Kippy

Buy 6 acres of marginal land between 3 people (€6k each) and plant it with spruce, you'll have to wait a few years to get harvestable timber but you'll have the grant in the meantime to buy thinnings etc.
Also there may be mature trees on the land which would be availbale in the interim.
I don't like the idea of willow or eucalyptus, i prefer the idea of cutting down a lump of a spruce tree.

greenfingers89

locky76 wrote: »

Also there may be mature trees on the land which would be availbale in the interim.

I don't like the idea of willow or eucalyptus, i prefer the idea of cutting down a lump of a spruce tree.

if you did plant land under the grant scheme i strongly recommend you DONT cut any mature trees that are already on site, the grant could be withheld or partially withheld if the inspector didnt approve (most wont at all) or if the npws get wind of it they could stop the grant and impose further fines.

theres a court case coming up pretty soon regarding birch cleared out of a corner of a site which was planted with spruce under the grant scheme, a good result for the farmer will be a fine of a few thousand quid from what i hear. feckin npws.....

agreed about eucalyptus, too frost prone. has been discussed somewhere here before im sure you'll find it if you go back through the forum a bit. maybe plant 20-40% eucalyptus IF the site is pretty fertile. always a good idea to plant maybe 3 different species in your situation OP..... eggs, basket etc

Oldtree

If you do decide to plant eucalyptus make sure your site is not a frost hollow and you go for the hardiest variety

I've done 3Xwillow, poplar and ash mix.

locky76

Ah greenfingers, stop scaremongering;)
My understanding is that you can cut any trees (with a felling licence of course) along roadways, boundaries etc. if there is a danger of them falling, this seems to me at least (and three foresters who've i've sought advice off, private guy, teagasc guy & forestry company guy) to be solely at the landowners discretion.
Point taken alright that cutting every tree in the place isn't going to wash, point taken also that a mix would be preferable rather than going with the one species.
How would a mix of spruce (quick volume), ash (long term firewood) & alder (medium term reasonable quality) sound?

greenfingers89 wrote: »

if you did plant land under the grant scheme i strongly recommend you DONT cut any mature trees that are already on site, the grant could be withheld or partially withheld if the inspector didnt approve (most wont at all) or if the npws get wind of it they could stop the grant and impose further fines.

theres a court case coming up pretty soon regarding birch cleared out of a corner of a site which was planted with spruce under the grant scheme, a good result for the farmer will be a fine of a few thousand quid from what i hear. feckin npws.....

agreed about eucalyptus, too frost prone. has been discussed somewhere here before im sure you'll find it if you go back through the forum a bit. maybe plant 20-40% eucalyptus IF the site is pretty fertile. always a good idea to plant maybe 3 different species in your situation OP..... eggs, basket etc

Silvics

Fair point when the inspector in question understands how to exercise discretion-however I'm sure we all know an inspector or two who would outshine the most ruthless of SS officials.

greenfingers89

locky76 wrote: »

with a felling licence

foresters who've i've sought advice off, teagasc guy & forestry company guy)

solely at the landowners discretion.

point taken also that a mix would be preferable rather than going with the one species.
How would a mix of spruce (quick volume), ash (long term firewood) & alder (medium term reasonable quality) sound?

felling licence being the most important

teagasc guy?? o lord.....:rolleyes: dont get me started. by the way this is a separate issue but an awful lot of these forestry company guys arnt foresters at all so beware folks!

solely at the landowners discretion? ever heard of the forester service inspector? your probably better off if you havnt,
tis like this locky...the case i spoke of above now has a landowner saying in his defence that 1. he didnt think it would be a problem because he was planting other trees, 2. he was told it wouldnt be a problem by a few fellas and 3. sure its his land anyway. outside of the grant scheme what your saying pretty much stands up no problem but when the affor grant is involved the for service can be extremely strict about removing or clearing any trees (and even large scrub areas) from the payment area.

regarding OP's issue i dont see a problem with ss ash ald mix, depends on soil type after that. im really coming around to the idea of ss for personal firewood production, even an acre or two can be put on a cycle, say 12-20 years depending on productivity, felling small coups maybe every second year and replanting will give similar regular production to that of a coppice set up. and replanting isnt that bad really, if it was coppice you'd be best to spend a little time pruning back coppice shoots to produce maybe 3 or 4 larger stems so the workload wouldnt be too much more with spruce. ultimately sawing and splitting would be a little easier too with a far more uniform log from spruce but this mightnt really effect someone just producing for personal use i suppose

intbn

greenfingers89 wrote: »

felling licence being the most important

teagasc guy?? o lord.....:rolleyes: dont get me started. by the way this is a separate issue but an awful lot of these forestry company guys arnt foresters at all so beware folks!

solely at the landowners discretion? ever heard of the forester service inspector? your probably better off if you havnt,
tis like this locky...the case i spoke of above now has a landowner saying in his defence that 1. he didnt think it would be a problem because he was planting other trees, 2. he was told it wouldnt be a problem by a few fellas and 3. sure its his land anyway. outside of the grant scheme what your saying pretty much stands up no problem but when the affor grant is involved the for service can be extremely strict about removing or clearing any trees (and even large scrub areas) from the payment area.

regarding OP's issue i dont see a problem with ss ash ald mix, depends on soil type after that. im really coming around to the idea of ss for personal firewood production, even an acre or two can be put on a cycle, say 12-20 years depending on productivity, felling small coups maybe every second year and replanting will give similar regular production to that of a coppice set up. and replanting isnt that bad really, if it was coppice you'd be best to spend a little time pruning back coppice shoots to produce maybe 3 or 4 larger stems so the workload wouldnt be too much more with spruce. ultimately sawing and splitting would be a little easier too with a far more uniform log from spruce but this mightnt really effect someone just producing for personal use i suppose

You seem to know yer stuff greenfingers89, would ye think much of planting the trees that are exempt from requiring a felling license? i.e. cherry trees, apple trees etc(for anyone wondering)

we had a cherry tree in me mother in-laws garden about 12ft high and we cut it down one summer when we where doing up her garden, well her other son in-law did , but he hadn't enough juice in his chainsaw to completely cut it down to the trunk(left about 3ft and hung some ornaments) and within a year it grew almost completely the same height!
now maybe it was a little more than a year but i didn't think you'd get more than 2ft on average for a tree per year, especially one cut right back to it's stem!
it was within 30ft of her house also, don't know if she would have had to fill out and submit a felling license, all that ordnance survey map and all!

these worth consideration to the OP do ye think?

Good loser

If your soil isn't too acidic I'd like ash plus poplar. It's been said ash is the only wood you can burn right away. Have planted some poplar in KK - huge growth approx twice that of sitka; very straight and splits very easily.

greenfingers89

intbn wrote: »

You seem to know yer stuff greenfingers89, would ye think much of planting the trees that are exempt from requiring a felling license? i.e. cherry trees, apple trees etc(for anyone wondering)


it was within 30ft of her house also, don't know if she would have had to fill out and submit a felling license, all that ordnance survey map and all!

these worth consideration to the OP do ye think?

in short, no. wouldnt go near fruit trees. and no seh wouldnt have required a felling licence

intbn

greenfingers89 wrote: »

in short, no. wouldnt go near fruit trees. and no seh wouldnt have required a felling licence

sorry, I was gettin me jargon mixed up, would you advise still submitting a felling notice to the nearest garda station even for any trees exempt from the forestry act?

greenfingers89

intbn wrote: »

sorry, I was gettin me jargon mixed up, would you advise still submitting a felling notice to the nearest garda station even for any trees exempt from the forestry act?

unless im missing something, i dont see any reason to. im sure it wouldnt do any harm if you did