Trees - the fantasy and the reality

[kiwi pom]

Our government spends millions removing "wilding pines" from thousands of acres of what looks to me like spare ground, then spends millions on tree planting schemes
Can't get my head round that one.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Our government spends millions removing "wilding pines" from thousands of acres of what looks to me like spare ground, then spends millions on tree planting schemes
Can't get my head round that one.

they still allow your fencing timber to be treated with CCA though.
has cost us thousands being denied the use of that .
Trouble is here also , weve had bad tree diseases ( Elm disease Larch canker ash dieback) which have wiped out huge amounts of good quality wood, laying it more or less to waste.

 

[Homesy]

My sawmill business is currently paying £140-150/tonne for softwood logs*- on the open market -no bigger than stuff I've planted myself.
*I'm paying more for some hardwood logs, but am too far up the hill to grow the quality.

If I'd planted the whole place as a young man, I'd now be turning over hundreds of thousands a year in round timber sales.

So, you're planting trees to sequester carbon then cutting them down for logs ???
explain how this helps to reduce CO2

 

[Bury the Trash]

So, you're planting trees to sequester carbon then cutting them down for logs ???
explain how this helps to reduce CO2

where does it say hes doing that ? they are for his timber buisness.

ive planted trees over the years and never once thought oh yeah 'because they would sequestor carbon'lol.
No, they are planted for the wood . and amenity value but wood is the ultimate pay off for that as well.

its not rocket science.

 

[FonterraFarmer]

trees are a bloody liability!

Fecking nightmare!!!

 

[Weasel]

Will land capture more carbon in grass/heather? Absolutely not from what I see.
Does managed forestry give less employment than hill livestock? Depends on level of management.
If my place was covered in timber, managed inhouse, I'd be employing more labour than I currently do chasing a few sheep and coos. And I'd be making an honest profit.

Accept that the animosity within hill livestock communities is driven by historic -some recent historic- events and trends.
Elsewhere, forestry and farming have gone hand in hand for centuries.

Load of shite

 

[Turnip]

So, you're planting trees to sequester carbon then cutting them down for logs ???
explain how this helps to reduce CO2

how doesn't it as the wood contains the co2 it absorbed during growth, okay additional co2 is generated in cutting them down into usable pieces but the co2 absorbed during growth is still in the wood. If the logs are then used to burn or made to release the co2 in another manner I get your point but that is usually not the point of a sawmill.

 

[egbert]

So, you're planting trees to sequester carbon then cutting them down for logs ???
explain how this helps to reduce CO2

I'm not planting trees to sequester CO2, and am openly scathing of the concept - as far as now accepting that the concept is almost certainly being financially supported by the fossil fuel lobby.

Trees do absorb carbon- it's what they're made of. But like cow burp methane, it is only ever part of a very short - in geological terms- loop.

Try to separate.... 1. many/some farmers loathing for blanket sitka which changes the landscape and employment opportunities,
and 2, global warming/climate change denialist tendencies wanting to diss anything they don't like the sound of.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

my livestock can scarcely hold their head above water.
My farming profits - which are often considerable- are almost wholly subsidy driven.

Off 600 hectares, I produce about a tonne of wool a year.
A half decent sitka plantation is doing 10-15 tonnes of harvestable mass per hectare per year.
I forget the conversion equation to give you a carbon tonnage, but it blows wool, and livestock, and peat out of the window.
I'm not advocating, or supporting blanket monocultures, but the numbers are there for anyone to see.

'In house managed forestry'?
Perhaps you think everything is like the plant/neglect/clearfell abomination as practised in most UK upland forestry.
Go to the alps, go to scandinavia, see how it can be done.

Look, i'm a multi-generational hill livestockman. I couldn't be much more immersed in it.
But I do wish some of us would be a bit less blinkered about growing trees as a crop.
What I've planted has been some of the best work I've ever done...in shelter terms if nothing else.
We need to see the benefits, and farm them accordingly....not allow the rewilding/carbon credit fraudsters et al dictate nonsensical policy

Good post - I believe "blanket statements are wrecking the conversations" TBH

Some say that grazing livestock "is the answer" but TBH a lot of "grazing" is restricting what's actually "possible for that acre" - so that's simplistic and likely not "the anwer" at all

(eg who would plant random trees in a paddock, when it would just be a nuisance to mow - rake - bale - spread - drill - plough around?
Hence the way we do things matters)

Planting a whole farm's worth in one year and then clearfelling in 28 years it is hardly the "pinnacle" either, seems to be an awful lot of that still going on down here unfortunately, again it's far from "the answer"

when you look at the water quality that comes out of it and the limitations of these models, it almost seems to follow that we need more 'some of this and some of this and even some of this' going on even if it is harder to manage than simple monocultures

 

[Homesy]

I'm not planting trees to sequester CO2, and am openly scathing of the concept - as far as now accepting that the concept is almost certainly being financially supported by the fossil fuel lobby

second paragraph post #15 you seemed to be insinuating that. My mistake.

 

[DaveGrohl]

I'm not planting trees to sequester CO2, and am openly scathing of the concept - as far as now accepting that the concept is almost certainly being financially supported by the fossil fuel lobby.

Trees do absorb carbon- it's what they're made of. But like cow burp methane, it is only ever part of a very short - in geological terms- loop.

Try to separate.... 1. many/some farmers loathing for blanket sitka which changes the landscape and employment opportunities,
and 2, global warming/climate change denialist tendencies wanting to diss anything they don't like the sound of.

Got there in the end, phew. Trees are just part of the carbon cycle, just a slightly longer version than the methane part as you’ve pointed out. Absolutely nothing wrong with growing trees, harvesting them and using the timber as an activity as you’ve pointed out. Humans have been doing it since we started.

What boils my p1ss is the pathetic trumpeting of tree planting by those with the power as some sort of answer to climate change. They’re not. They merely cycle CO2 and that’s only if the saplings actually survive (see the article). There’s no real amount of carbon being locked away forever. Again, when has anyone ever heard a politician tell us what is to happen to these trees? Vague talk by the apologists about "burying the trees" is just comical. Use them for building projects? That’ll be to replace the timber from the building(s) you’ve just torn down and burnt? Oh, ok then.

But the real p1ss boiler is the weaponisation and monetisation of all this tree planting. It’s a worldwide scandal as the article (and others) points out. All because no one wants to face up to the real problem, fossil fuels. I have no answers, but I want us to actually face up to what the question actually is, not what politicians and crucially the moneymen want it to be.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

my livestock can scarcely hold their head above water.
My farming profits - which are often considerable- are almost wholly subsidy driven.

Off 600 hectares, I produce about a tonne of wool a year.
A half decent sitka plantation is doing 10-15 tonnes of harvestable mass per hectare per year.
I forget the conversion equation to give you a carbon tonnage, but it blows wool, and livestock, and peat out of the window.
I'm not advocating, or supporting blanket monocultures, but the numbers are there for anyone to see.

'In house managed forestry'?
Perhaps you think everything is like the plant/neglect/clearfell abomination as practised in most UK upland forestry.
Go to the alps, go to scandinavia, see how it can be done.

Look, i'm a multi-generational hill livestockman. I couldn't be much more immersed in it.
But I do wish some of us would be a bit less blinkered about growing trees as a crop.
What I've planted has been some of the best work I've ever done...in shelter terms if nothing else.
We need to see the benefits, and farm them accordingly....not allow the rewilding/carbon credit fraudsters et al dictate nonsensical policy

What I've planted has been some of the best work I've ever done...in shelter terms if nothing else.
We need to see the benefits, and farm them accordingly....not allow the rewilding/carbon credit fraudsters et al dictate nonsensical policy

I can't remember for the life of me where I read it, but I read (farmers weekly maybe) a view, that on hill type land, there was more financial return from planting judicious shelter belts on uplands than spending the money on new sheds. The biggest problem we have now, is that tree planting is done by either the forestry industry (who don't know or care about how to integrate it with farming) or even worse the "carbon credit mob" who don't care about anything other than their greenwashing and the green light to continue pumping out carbon.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Its just a crop, not that much different than continuous maize for an AD plant or a wheat OSR two crop rotation, its just longer until harvest. When the crop is harvested it could (silly rules aside) be put back into Agriculture.
It provides jobs too, perhaps even more than extensively farmed sheep?

You don't want the whole country covered in them and they need to be managed properly (just like a farm) but I don't understand the hate.

but that is the problem here, once a forest, always a forest, any felling licence has to have a replanting schedule included in it.

 

[Jackov Altraids]

'tother way around here, we're planting strategically here and there ,for privacy/ to stop being overlooked, so many new housing developments around about now

Trees are brilliant at insulating any property from its surroundings but usually done through necessity rather than choice. Roots and leaves can be quite problematic in small areas.

 

[Jackov Altraids]

My sawmill business is currently paying £140-150/tonne for softwood logs*- on the open market -no bigger than stuff I've planted myself.
*I'm paying more for some hardwood logs, but am too far up the hill to grow the quality.

If I'd planted the whole place as a young man, I'd now be turning over hundreds of thousands a year in round timber sales.

Genuine question, How do you think your business will be affected in a few decades if the huge swathes of trees are planted as pledged?
As a well established mill I guess you may have a much better supply but there could also be much more competition?.....

but that is the problem here, once a forest, always a forest, any felling licence has to have a replanting schedule included in it.

I guess that depends if those in authority understand the need to use all this extra trees appropriately.

I guess people don't mind when spruce plantations are cut because it is clear to see what ugly and sterile environments they are. If this new wave of tree planting is done better involving a wide range of native trees creating a better habitat, I can't see it being allowed to be harvested.
Will sensitive harvesting of trees planted sympathetically be profitable enough?

 

[glasshouse]

My sawmill business is currently paying £140-150/tonne for softwood logs*- on the open market -no bigger than stuff I've planted myself.
*I'm paying more for some hardwood logs, but am too far up the hill to grow the quality.

If I'd planted the whole place as a young man, I'd now be turning over hundreds of thousands a year in round timber sales.

All subsidy driven for burning

 

[The Seeker]

I often wonder what the next big thing they will come up with to blame is methane carbon …

 

[glasshouse]

It would be better to burn coal than trees.

 

[ollie989898]

You can't plant thousands of acres of single species woodland without long term fudging the environment- it would be no different to growing maize on the same land year after year.

If we are serious about planting native woodlands, then someone quite skilled has to evaluate the land in question and draw up a considerate and long term plan for planting with species that suit the area and in a way that is sympathetic toward the terrain, watercourses and also considers how the stuff may be eventually harvested. Not much else survives within a sitka plantation.

 

[jondear]

Looking at lots of trees around here lots are dieing