** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

[Cyril Haearn]

But yes, forestry is highly mechanised as is modern farming...

Thought I'd cheer this thread up with a photo of modern forestry. I took this earlier today. The oak will not be going into either pulp or chip. The Fordson Major is a mainstay of the forest industry....

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/144/Wk1K3H.jpg

What will happen to the oak? I like the asymmetrical front axle

Try googling 'Gurkenflieger' for some pics of modern agriculture in Germany

[PDQ Mobile]

Round here the smallholder's mainstay is MF135.
Very little wood is wasted.

And long straight oak is pretty hard to find.
But personally I try never to waste it, no matter how difficult the access is!
A 15'6" beam is always handy.


Up in the forestry things are very different though!
Always clear felled.
Waste is everywhere. Soil erosion rife,lots of storm damage.
Not picturesque at all.
(Though that's not confined to the coniferous woods.I think we have lost more large trees round here, to wind, in the last 5 years than in all the preceeding 30)

As far as I am aware nothing from local coniferous forestry goes to the sawmill, only for paper and chipboard maybe some plywood.

[Ben@Forest]

But yes, forestry is highly mechanised as is modern farming...

Thought I'd cheer this thread up with a photo of modern forestry. I took this earlier today. The oak will not be going into either pulp or chip. The Fordson Major is a mainstay of the forest industry....

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/144/Wk1K3H.jpg

What will happen to the oak? I like the asymmetrical front axle

The best of the oak will go into construction (oak framed buildings or oak framed conservatories etc) are increasingly popular, then floorboards or planking and then fencing. If the stem has an interesting characteristic, maybe even a flaw, it may be milled to produce furniture or some part of furniture, like a table top, because of that quirk. The asymmetrical front axle is because it's 4WD, and that was (and is) common in forestry tractors but I don't know if 4WD was out of the factory or a conversion that was offered.

[Vorpal]

Thought I'd cheer this thread up with a photo of modern forestry. I took this earlier today. The oak will not be going into either pulp or chip. The Fordson Major is a mainstay of the forest industry....

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/144/Wk1K3H.jpg

What will happen to the oak? I like the asymmetrical front axle

The best of the oak will go into construction (oak framed buildings or oak framed conservatories etc) are increasingly popular, then floorboards or planking and then fencing. If the stem has an interesting characteristic, maybe even a flaw, it may be milled to produce furniture or some part of furniture, like a table top, because of that quirk. The asymmetrical front axle is because it's 4WD, and that was (and is) common in forestry tractors but I don't know if 4WD was out of the factory or a conversion that was offered.

The early ones were conversions. They were done by Roadless. The Ford design came from an adapted truck axle. That's said to be why it was asymmetric. (I don't know if it's true)

[PDQ Mobile]

The best of the oak will go into construction (oak framed buildings or oak framed conservatories etc) are increasingly popular, then floorboards or planking and then fencing.

One would hope the main trunk of such a durable timber would be used sensibly.
The same everywhere. The most valuable part.
Commercial sense.

What happens to what we can't see?
The upper branches and the small brash?

That is where I think the Europeans do it better.
Generally there is really good firewood industry, whether as corded wood sold by auction in the communal forest.or privately processed and sold.
Sustainable energy.
A good deal of smaller stuff gets shredded to chipb and used in heating large public buildings. Everything goes into such a furnace.
Very sensible.

Round here it just gets mostly wasted.

I was told by a man knowledgable in such matters (I am a layman) that the chip size is wrong for the furnace makers requirements.
There are grant aided schemes, grant money apparently is available to install such a furnace. Sustainable energy stuff.
But the UK furnace design requires finer drier chip or processed pellet.

[Cyril Haearn]

Round here the smallholder's mainstay is MF135.
Very little wood is wasted.

And long straight oak is pretty hard to find.
But personally I try never to waste it, no matter how difficult the access is!
A 15'6" beam is always handy.


Up in the forestry things are very different though!
Always clear felled.
Waste is everywhere
..
.. .

What uses do you have for a 3 m beam?
I thought the FC/Industry was a bit greener now, planting deciduous trees etc, right or wrong?
The Stadtwald, town forest, here in Luebeck has been managed sustainably for some years, went to a talk about it
'We use indigenous trees, exotic trees grow too much or too little and need more attention, indigenous trees, make less work, we are lazy' The yield is good apparently
Try googling to read about it in German, or look for Lauerholz on google maps
The Kellerwald near Kassel has been 'abandoned', +1
In Tharandt there is a fascinating Forstbotanische Garten, Arboretum, all about trees,+2

[pete75]

But yes, forestry is highly mechanised as is modern farming...

Thought I'd cheer this thread up with a photo of modern forestry. I took this earlier today. The oak will not be going into either pulp or chip. The Fordson Major is a mainstay of the forest industry....

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/144/Wk1K3H.jpg

Round here the forestry mainstay seem to be Valmet - big machines that cut trees down and others with grabs that load their own trailers. Chainsaws seem to be a thing of the past for professional foresters cutting trees down. When I was a lad it was the AEC Matador and there's still one left moldering away in a wood up the road. Before them it was the Shire or so I'm told.

[pete75]

The early ones were conversions. They were done by Roadless. The Ford design came from an adapted truck axle. That's said to be why it was asymmetric. (I don't know if it's true)

As far as I remember there was a power take off added on the side of the gearbox for the front wheel drive. The axle had the non central diff to give a straight line for the propshaft. Not uncommon with four wheel drive - the front diff is the same on my series 2a Land Rover

[Cyril Haearn]

But yes, forestry is highly mechanised as is modern farming...

Thought I'd cheer this thread up with a photo of modern forestry. I took this earlier today. The oak will not be going into either pulp or chip. The Fordson Major is a mainstay of the forest industry....

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/144/Wk1K3H.jpg

Round here the forestry mainstay seem to be Valmet - big machines that cut trees down and others with grabs that load their own trailers. Chainsaws seem to be a thing of the past for professional foresters cutting trees down. When I was a lad it was the AEC Matador and there's still one left moldering away in a wood up the road. Before them it was the Shire or so I'm told.

Saw a horse dragging trunks out in the Stadtwald recently, the ground is very low soft and wet
Minder told me he did it as a second job
+1 for horses

[Vorpal]

As far as I remember there was a power take off added on the side of the gearbox for the front wheel drive. The axle had the non central diff to give a straight line for the propshaft. Not uncommon with four wheel drive - the front diff is the same on my series 2a Land Rover

The story, as I heard it was that after WWII, there were alot of unused military vehicles about. These were used to convert tractors to 4WD by cutting one side of the axle shorter for the tractor wheel width. This was obviously cheaper than cutting both sides shorter. Front PTOs on tractors came somewhat later. I imagine that design continued that way because it made sense and allowed clearance for front PTOs.

[pete75]

As far as I remember there was a power take off added on the side of the gearbox for the front wheel drive. The axle had the non central diff to give a straight line for the propshaft. Not uncommon with four wheel drive - the front diff is the same on my series 2a Land Rover

The story, as I heard it was that after WWII, there were alot of unused military vehicles about. These were used to convert tractors to 4WD by cutting one side of the axle shorter for the tractor wheel width. This was obviously cheaper than cutting both sides shorter. Front PTOs on tractors came somewhat later. I imagine that design continued that way because it made sense and allowed clearance for front PTOs.

Not talking about PTO for machinery etc but the power take off for the front wheel drive shaft which came off the left hand side of teh gearbox. A prop shaft works best in a straightish line so the diff was offset to give it a straight line. I'm pretty sure this is how they worked because I used to drive the things. You can see the layout in this picture.



The really interesting four wheel drive conversion of the major was the Doe Triple D - a neighbour has several in his collection

[Vorpal]

Not talking about PTO for machinery etc but the power take off for the front wheel drive shaft which came off the left hand side of teh gearbox. A prop shaft works best in a straightish line so the diff was offset to give it a straight line. I'm pretty sure this is how they worked because I used to drive the things. You can see the layout in this picture.

The really interesting four wheel drive conversion of the major was the Doe Triple D - a neighbour has several in his collection

OK, I would have called that a coupling or joint, rather than PTO.

I've driven a few myself.

I've also seen a few of the Doe Triple Ds before.

[Ben@Forest]

[One would hope the main trunk of such a durable timber would be used sensibly.
The same everywhere. The most valuable part.
Commercial sense.

What happens to what we can't see?
The upper branches and the small brash?

That is where I think the Europeans do it better.
Generally there is really good firewood industry, whether as corded wood sold by auction in the communal forest.or privately processed and sold.
Sustainable energy.
A good deal of smaller stuff gets shredded to chipb and used in heating large public buildings. Everything goes into such a furnace.
Very sensible.

Round here it just gets mostly wasted.

I don't think it is wasted. There has been debate about brash in recent years and taking it all away (or burning it in big piles to make the subsequent re-planting easier) has fallen out of fashion for one reason - nutrient cycling. It was realised that if you take all of the tree away in every thinning or rotation you are affecting the nutrient status of the soil. Some of nutrient has to be retained and allowed to break down to help grow new trees. So when people say - it looks messy - that's true and for a good reason.

Secondly a lot of our forestry (especially upland coniferous) is grown on fairly wet soils. When harvesting it is often best practice to fell trees onto or run vehicles on brash mats, this protects the soil structure from physical damage. Of course once you've compressed it into the soil (because it's been run over a hundred times by vehicles loaded with 16 to 20 tonnes at a time) you can't then put it into the timber market. It can be redistributed across the site to break down more widely or just left in situ.

This photo shows a brash mat on a wet conifer site - a couple of years after clearfell, in a few more years it'll not be noticeable and of course the nutrients will help the new crop. And the importance of preservation of soil structure to prevent soil erosion has acquired a lot more significance both in farming and forestry in the last decade.

[Vorpal]

It provides habitat for small creatures, as well.

[PDQ Mobile]

I don't think it is wasted. There has been debate about brash in recent years and taking it all away (or burning it in big piles to make the subsequent re-planting easier) has fallen out of fashion for one reason - nutrient cycling. It was realised that if you take all of the tree away in every thinning or rotation you are affecting the nutrient status of the soil. Some of nutrient has to be retained and allowed to break down to help grow new trees. So when people say - it looks messy - that's true and for a good reason.

Secondly a lot of our forestry (especially upland coniferous) is grown on fairly wet soils.

IMHO only partly true.

I understand to concept of nutrient recycling very well.
And while there is much to be said for running the machinery on brash mat roads what happens in most local forestry is an unnecessarily huge amount of waste.IMHO

Not just the small needle rich branches but anything odd sized, bent or injured gets trashed, often really useful sizable stuff too.
And the soil still gets churned up like the Somme, in spite of the brash.

While the Western coniferous woods may indeed have wet soils. Those soils are also very thin. A hard substrate often lies just a few inches down - ideal for track making.
Many of these dense Western coniferous forests have very acid nutrient poor soils- little grows under the stands of Sitka etc.
The drain off water quality is often desperately bad and the woods very species poor.

More diversity of tree species (especially more deciduous in the mix) and age of tree would fulfill the same nutrient recycling role.

The people that fell trees for keeping electric and phone wires free and safe use a similar system. They lazily pile it all up and call it an "eco pile"! which is just another fashionable name for making a blooming mess!

Personally I would like to see less clear fell, for therein lies the big problem.IMV.
Where my local forest was clear felled the new seeding plantings have to be sprayed with insecticide to combat some beetle. It could be that all those piles of rotting brash harbours such problematic insects, not to mention other tree pathogens.
My vision would be a forest where the trees are thinned as they reach maturity.
More Fordson Major and less massive "Harvester".
And more diversity of species, hard and soft woods mixed.

I do recognize that brash piles do temporarily help some species. But the waste is excessive IMV.

Better would be a forest which benefits wildlife, provides more of a recreational amenity for local people and for tourism. Plus other benefits.

And provides a sustainable fuel resource from some of the waste; for there is fuel poverty here and our forests could play a role in alleviating that, given an enlightened attitude similar to that which exists in parts of Europe. A sustainable energy, well suited to rural places.
It does exist in places in the UK but it is often the exception rather than the rule.
That is my layman's view.