Turn a field into a forest with super charged trees. Become self sufficient in firewood!
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- Опубліковано 21 лис 2024
- Becoming self-sufficient in firewood made simple. Here are the the secrets to grow the right trees and the right way to grow them.
Here is a link to the tree heat data that I mentioned in the video:
worldforestind...
We live in the north of England and try to be as gentle on the Earth as possible here on our smallholding with Hazel the pup. - Навчання та стиль
Love your videos! I also have a piece of land which is mostly grassy and wet. You've convinced me that fast growing willow is a great option for me. I'm probably going to start planting within a couple of years and I'm very excited about getting started.
Souds great - keep us updated. It is really nice to heat from people who are doing the same.
at last someone does a video on the amount of land required compared the yield and time for the tree to grow to the heat it produces! So well put together.
I'm in South Wales. Six years ago started planting an acre of hybrid willows for biomass. Last winter we took the first harvest. After a summer standing it is dry enough to burn. It burns fast and hot. I made a batch box type mass heater built to an ingle nook fire place in our stone cottage. Much of the heat is retained in the mass of the fire place and the surrounding stone walls. Our living room is still warm the morning after a burn.
All the small twiggy bits of willow that were deemed too small to burn were put through a shredder and are now being used as a mulch in the garden. The later willow planting was inter planted with oak and chestnut well spaced out which were and grown from seed gathered locally.
So far its working out well, and very rewarding.
That sounds really good - what sort of quantity of willow did you get?
@@theviewfromtheclouds Its difficult to quantify. Hopefully enough to get us through the winter without having to carry wood off the beach which gets more difficult as the years go by.
Does willow give of toxic chemical when burned ?
@@blueocean2510 No more thana any other firewood. Smoke isn't fantastic to breathe, but of course that's why we have chimneys.
The last time I visited the Lammas Project near me in West Wales, I met some people who were growing willow for biomass. I scoffed a bit at the time, but judging by what I've read recently, including your report on how much heat it generates, I was wrong to. Speaking of woody mulch, this is the time of year that I gather brambles to feed in bundles through the wood chipper. Spread about an inch thick in spring, the chips make an excellent mulch that deters slugs and melts away in about a year.
Very interesting. I'm french, south of France, we usé beech and oak, never Willow or trees like that because we say the wood isnt premium quality, but what you explain hère is very rational and smart, specialy for people that want to be self sufficient . Thank you
The difference between here in france and the uk is that france still has thousands of woods that are worked for fire wood . thr uk cut most of its woods down to build ships way back and then never replanted or did with fast growing quick cash softwoods.
Also most people forget that well insulated , well build home can need 10 times less energy to heat it up, so that means also 10 times less wood to gather... Being energy efficient helps with self sufficiency tremendously. Problematic of passive houses is well documented on youtube.
This felt illegal to watch for free!! Absolutely packed with information and delivered in such a pleasant manner, many, many thanks
Thank you, I really appreciate that!
The "for where you are" is a key point. We cleared a few acres of our land in New England and our pioneer trees are cherry and black Birch. Very fast growing and dense; about an inch of width per year, easy to split and fast drying. We get 2-3 harvests while one generation of oak grows in between.
this video popped up randomly in my feed, I am interested in such topics. My comment is for you. No 'er's, 'ah's, 'um's, repetitions, filler words, or deviations. Undoubtedly THE most well articulated article I have had the real pleasure of viewing in a long, long time. YOur presentation is rare in that it is so good. Thank you!
That is extremely nice of you - thanks!
Got a chill dog, one happy pup
Yes, she is very chill and loves snuggles!
Sweet doggo. I love you let her/him drag it's duck around. 😊
That " brush" as you call it is what i used in spring and fall when i was only taking the chill from house , but once a week or so, i built a proper fire to burn out chiminy..i would stuff small boxes with sticks and newspaper for fire starters ( usually quart milk cartons)
Information-dense, honest, well meaning video. Thank you.
That is just what I hoped it would be - thank you!
What about Eucalyptus? It's a hard wood, grows straight and also very quickly in the UK, plus it has medical properties too 🌿
Birch is what I saw all using when I grew up in Norway. Loved the burn and heat and smell.
I grow some Birch for coppicing in my garden too. I do have a range of trees, as I'm very mindful of the effect of monocultures on the environment.
(I live close to Sitka plantations, and see the effect of monocultures environment on these and for the land around).
So I have Birch, Willow, Hazel, Beech, common species of pine, Alder and a few Oak - as well as starting to clear the Ash from my little bit of established woodland, before the fungus gets it.
Another in my garden is cherry, which I grew from fruit pips. These grow fast, and may often grow back from the original stump or somewhere along the root.
I have Chinese plum trees, which both produce fruit and grow at a reasonable rate to produce the odd bit of firewood. Of course, cut one down and there's no fruit for a few years, so a few years ago I started transplanting the root suckers in order to propagate new plants, so it means I can always have a tree in fruit when another is coppiced.
Good one-off firewood trees are Eucalyptus - especially E. viminalis. That can grow as much as 9ft a year in the right place. Plus, one log can take all day to burn, so it's very efficient in terms of your work with a chainsaw.
They don't grow back from stumps (or if they do, they are often too weak to survive for long), but seed is still reasonably cheap and available from a good seed merchant.
From seed, E.viminalis grows 6ft in its first year (in West Scotland climate).
Love this content been saying for years to people that you burn whats readily available always hated wasting decent carving wood burning it.
Thank you for that.
Greetings from the north eastern USA. Respect to you for using as many parts of the tree as possible. I’ll use any wood for firewood, provided it’s not white pine, any kind of sumac or anything poisonous. We have a lot of firewood, snobs around here; some of them don’t actually even burn their own firewood, it’s just there for looks.
In this part of the country, we have a disease affecting beech trees. It’s called Beech bark disease and it’s spread by a beetle. In 10 years, all of the beech trees will probably be dead, with a few immune survivors. BTW, your dog is totally adorable! 🌲🌳🪵🔥🐶🐾
I came across an article about Japanese intense foresting in which the trees are planted in such a natural way that it encourages fast growth
So peaceful while I watch, this is my way of life, living it on a smaller scale with my dog, I grow Willow in my garden, it's awesome stuff, I even called my old narrow boat Willow, new sub too 😊
Great info thanks, we have about 7 acres mixed in the highlands for anout ten years, weve actually found processing the gorse to be very good, apparently it was once used for iron smelting, and has since got out of control, its not that hard to harvest with decent gloves and one of the only things the deer dont eat, it also lays really well and grows fast, we bought a processor which breaks it down to 2x3" chunks which we use in the log burner on a top down burn method, we think its a very under appreciated resource which grows readily in the uk most places and the smell in flower is amazing, it can also be crushed in winter for feed stock 😀
We do the same on the west coast, near Oban. We have some gorse that's so mature that the trunk can be 10 inches in diameter. It grows faster than we can burn it. Interesting what you said about using it for animal feed. What do you crush it with? We have a small flock of Soay sheep so that would be a brilliant resource to tap in to
@delektrik1 I had no idea gorse could get that big! I do like the coconut smell from the flowers!
@@theviewfromtheclouds to be fair, our land is the only place I've ever seen it as big as it is. When we first got the place we were looking at ways to get rid of it, not realising what a fantastic resource it is. Being pea family it fixes nitrogen too and the soil underneath the gorse canopy is unbelievable
I hear rhododendron makes quite good firewood too!
@delektrik1 well we don't actually crush ot ourselves but when reading up on its uses, we found that gorse mills were once very much a thing where the young green shoots would be crushed, I'd imagine a roller of some sort, maybe a chipper would work nowadays, it's a member of the pea family so nitrogen fixer and protien, didn't say what the nutrient profile would be sorry
In Virginia, US, we have a lot of somewhat-invasive THIORNY black locust trees which grow fast and make excellent firewood. The 1.5-3 inch thorns are no joke, so we're clearing the black locust from livestock fields, but we have black locust on hilly terrain that we'll harvest for years and years...
Black Locust is sort of a miracle working tree.
I understand that you don't want the thorny branches in some areas, but we had them all over in our lawn when I was growing up.
The grass grows great under them because they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and put it in the soil each year.
The blossoms smell nice, and as you know, they make great firewood.
@@richtomlinson7090and the wood is rot resistant and can be made into wooden stakes, etc!
@rtom675
Absolutely.
Black Locust with Orange Osage and Red Mulberry as some of the most rot resistant of the North American woods.
@@richtomlinson7090 oh, I had no idea red mulberry was on that list! Is white mulberry also rot resistant. I know, I know, invasive, but I live way too north for red mulberry to be an option…
@rtom675
I don't have any experience with the White Mulberry variety, but it seems it is rot resistant from what I have read.
I also found that Red Mulberry can grow as far north as zone 4 maybe.
Alnus glutinosa, Ulmus Laevis, Acer pseudoplatanus, Corrylus avelana
Salix alba, Poplar (Populus tremula of P. nigra )
All used for coppicing in the Netherlands, Alnus, Ulmus and Corrylus are my favorites. They grow very fast in my neck of the woods on moist sandy soil in the south of Holland and coppice really well and are also very good for biodiversity.
Thank you! In Romania we call it energetic willow
Excellent, well-rounded video.
One aspect you did not touch on was the rate at which the wood is burned. Over the past 40 years we have progressed from an open fireplace to a slow-combustion heater, insulating the roof and ceiling, then the walls, then double glazing. Our firewood consumption has gone down while maintaining a warmer home. The oak you said would warm your house for a night, would heat ours for 2-3 nights. Our house is about 1,000 sq feet in area.
Greetings from Poland. I grow poplar for firewood. It is better than willow because we can decide for ourselves whether we cut thin shoots or older trees. 0.5 ha cut in rotation is enough to heat your house!
I'm off grid here in Cheshire, if you want I can send you the best biomass willow variety currently in existence. It's called 'endurance' high density and BTU for a willow, very strong grower, stays in leaf longer and the leaves are broad and thick so make very good suppressive mulch when grass planted. It doesn't look like any other biomass willow so its easy to differentiate from all the viminalis types, let me know if you're interested I don't want any money for it just supporting a fellow Coppicing enthusiast.
That is very kind of you - thanks! If you email me, we can organise it: theviewfromthecloudswithus@gmail.com
Is that only available in the UK?
Hardwood like oak grow better and hardier in the woods and not in a prairie. Here in south of Quebec we do this to keep the hardwood as straight and less knotty as possible.
Great informative video btw, never thought that willow would be that efficient for firewood
I have a mulberry in my backyard that grows like no other tree I have personally seen. I had it cut down to about @ 4” stump and in two years, with only spares rains in the Texas panhandle, it is now about 9’ tall and has grown about 20 different trunks off the stump. Most are about 1-1.5” thick. I am going to be doing some cuttings come springtime for a couple people that want to plant privacy screen on theirs properties. In addition to the wood they provide, mulberry is used by some to make jams. Deer and other animals like the fruit. And they make great shade trees for animals when they are full green.
I am amazed that your oak tree you are standing by took 22 years to grow! The oaks I have planted are massive after 20 years and indeed my friend climbed to the very top of one of them! Please note the land around my cottage is classified as poor land!
That's impressive! I think the land where our oaks are is too wet and windy to suit them. Where in the world are your trees?
first time viewer, great filming, content and delivery, music got a bit loud towards the end but i could still make out what you were saying. i also am getting a grassy field that i want to plant trees in part of it. Sussex.
Yes, the music volume seemed to go wrong in the editing somehow. I will keep a closer eye on it in future. Thanks for these compliments!
Lived in Cornwall a few years back and we still had a lot of Elm, it would get to about 30 feet before Dutch elm disease killed them. Very tough to cut and split but burned nice and slow when it had dried out. Fortunately the roots would throw up suckers and the trees would carry on.
Great informative video. I have produced willow and used it for heating for a couple of decades now and fully agree with you, I really like it. I have oak on the holding but fear it won’t be me harvesting it!
The way you did yr mathematics on this was brilliant. I have often wondered what you covered. Thanks. 😊
This is a brilliant video. Thankyou for taking the time to make this quality content
That dog loves to get loves. "You'll be cold for 22 years." That is a significant part of one's life.
The willow burns better than I had expected from my couple of heaters of 20 year old woodland. But it does hold a lot of moisture, and needs more seasoning to get it dry. However I have a massive supply of dead standing Ash. That being said, the willow needs Pollarding regularly, as it grows so fast it falls over if not cut back. The dead standing Ash is good to burn right from the saw. Ash is one of the only woods that can be burnt green, because it has such a low moisture content.
I made a 2m wide x 1m deep charcoal making pot, as the Aztecs used. It has large buckets, (50 litre) all round and when it's got enough charcoal, can be quenched producing about 39% charcoal to make BioChar
You know your stuff.wish i had some land.i have to get what i can for my burner although its hard work it keeps me going.just.
Great Video Thank You!!
Liked and Subscribed,
I was about to buy a strip of land next to a river, unfortunately my hubby had spent all the savings while I was ill and getting chemo!!
Oh well, I am back to square one now, but I'm determined!!
Just fell in love with your channel! Cinematic, great choice of music, soothing style and awesome topics
Just what I was aiming for, thanks!
Great video. Lovely to have you back on UA-cam
Thanks!
I heated a home in the Colorado mountains with aspen, fir, pine and spruce. Basically whatever I could get. Perhaps the wood stove wasn't the most efficient model, and the nights at 8,500 feet in elevation I'm sure were much colder than in England. It was a rough go, frankly. The stove was insatiable, and I found myself obsessing about getting enough wood. I thought it would be fun, but I was wrong.
I'm from the Netherlands and willow basically grows like grass here, where i lived it really felt like an infinite source of wood. I made tents with the poles, birdfeeders, a very crude fence and when it's dry it burns great. The hardest part about drying actually was that it's so hardy that it will try to grow even without soil. Willow is a bit like potato in many regards. I loved it! Same as your video as not only did i learn a f ton it also gave background to many of the observations i saw but didn't know why. Thanks for the video!
I am just a random guy but can't you coppice oak? I think i've seen old oak trees that used to be coppiced.
Yes you can coppice oak
Amazing channel! Relaxing as well as educational. Subscribed!
Thanks for that!
I just love when he says "IF we'd cut down this oak..." but then quicly adds "but we're not going to" while reassuringly petting the oak at 7'20'' 😂
You should try out hybrid poplar/ cottonwood. We had some in the wetlands nearby. The leaves were double the size of a hand and they grew extremely fast. They produce a light wood. But it burns well. Although it's hard to split because the fibers are interlocking.
You should use a shredder to utilize even a small branches. P.S. Good informative video (discovered it randomly by suggestions).
really good video! great information
Excellent video. I tried burning some willow and it "spanked" way too much, sending sparks into the carpet. I've found that wild cherry grows very fast and burns well. Also sycamore (which looks like your plane trees) grows very fast and burns well.
I am waiting for my willow but in the short term I have several ash trees with dead branches. Birch grows very fast too.
Really enjoyed this video, lots of really great information - thank you. We're experimenting with Eucalypts for a fast growing source of firewood - not loved by all I know, being non-native, it is a very useful and beautiful tree that give great fast growing hard wood though 💚✌🌿
We have tried several Eucalyptus varieties without success. Your place looks much drier and warmer than where we are. It would be nice if we could grow some.
@ yes, we are right down south which is an advantage .. there are some varieties I believe (Neglecta) which can tolerate shade and wetness, unfortunately they don’t grow so fast though… sounds like you know your stuff so I am sure you would have looked in to all of this 💚✌️🌿
Interesting to hear, and a very professional video!
Thank you very much!
This is one of the most pleasant and informative videos on tree killing I have ever seen.
It warmed my heart when you said you wouldn't cut down the lovely old beech tree.
Well, the best thing about coppicing is that it actually prolongs the life of the tree. It stops them maturing, so they can live much longer than they normally would. Amazing process!
Thats the point, Bro.
Coppicing (and Pollarding) means, in fact, NO trees are (LOL) "killed". They (a) live longer (b) produce more wood and (c) are propagated to hell and back to farm wood - multiplying the number of actual live trees.
Just look how many he both planted AND is keeping both alive and thriving the rest of his days.
LOL "tree killing" ...
@@theviewfromtheclouds You're a great teacher and I really like your style.
Yes coppicing is like giving a good haircut.
Great video.
Where. There’s. A. Will. There’s. A. Way. I love. Willow. Thanks for sharing.
How would you grow elder trees from cuttings to get elderflowers and elderberries? My wife uses them in cooking but between birds and everyone getting in on the act of foraging, this year she couldn't get many. They're not available in tree nurseries here and seed hasn't been successful. Thanks for all your videos. They've been very helpful.
One of the keys you mentioned but just briefly was that wood regardless of species produces about the same heat per weight. That is pretty key and not very well understood. 👍🏼👍🏼
I've had success with alder on wet land, it coppices well and burns nicely. Plus you get the finches and occasional redpoll visiting in winter. Growing your own firewood has got to be better than the boight stuff, its always so much birch to bulk it up cheaply.
We have self seeded alder - one of the few trees that seem to self generate where we are (the squirrels don’t eat the cones!)
Blackthorn is a great burner.
Like a lump of Coal burn all night.
No Sparkin Either.
My favourite timber to burn is Ash.
Lovect the Smell of it when you walk outside at Night and you can smell it in the Air.
Such a brilliant and informative video. Many thanks
In my area (Northeast U.S.) willows offer the first food for honeybees. And of course they are a fast growing source of supple wood to build fencing, baskets, etc. As far as firewood goes, how much and how far your stack goes depends on the efficiency of your burning system. In a rocket style stove, I wonder how far that .28 cord would get you. I recently overheard someone trashing willows because they create so much "litter"and wondering why people planted them." Thank you for this video.
Greetings from DK👍, We grow willov, alder and poplar. We cut back every 7-8 years. And have very good regrowth.
Unfortunately poplar show problem with regrowth. Så We prefer willow and alder.
Poplar however alså burns. 1 kg of poplar is still 1 kg of firewood😎🇩🇰.
Indeed. I have never met bad firewood!
A great video and so informative. Thank you.
hazel is brilliant too and you get the nuts too and grow ridiculously fast as well and copice extremely well too... so it is both food and heat and can go on the same 5 yr cycle as willow
Great vid, incredibly well produced and your dog is way too adorable! I cant get enough of their squishy face.
Thank you - that is very nice of you to say so. Hazel is lovely. She also has wonderfully soft fur!
More hits with the dog
I don't have one, but from what I have seen on multiple videos, a rocket mass heater would use a fraction of the wood you use. The wood you have in store there would probably last 15 to 20 weeks rather than two and a half weeks. I recommend watching the video "The Rocket Mass Heater. The cheapest home heating system" on the Cairn of Dunn Croft Permaculture channel. It is an excellent introduction to the rocket mass heater. There is also a series of videos on there showing how it was built.
People with much less land than you could become self-sufficient in firewood.
Worth baring in mind that coppiced oak and young oak has calorific value similar to willow and its only mature oak wood that burns hot. Planting oak is always a gift to our children. Eucalyptus is a very good option for uk as long as you choose the right species for your zone. Fast like willow but burns much hotter and coppices well too.
You are right about planting oak for future generations. I love that it can live so long and just get more interesting with age. We tried eucalyptus but sadly, our site is too cold and windy for it. Have you managed to grow any?
@@theviewfromtheclouds there's loads of Eucalyptus species, you might want to look at E.johnstonii, E.coccifera and E. urnigera. We havent planted any tbh. We have a mixed hardwood planting which includes hornbeam, red oak, robinia, maple and some other natives. PLus quite a lot of alder and willow in the wetter parts of our site. We've gone for diversity and long term yields over a quicker yielding system. We are considering a willow/ alder coppice for woodchip production though.
Willow burns fast, so you don't get to slowly juice out the BTUs like with a hardwood. Wood stove type can help mitigate this some, but not enough to truly compensate. A good mixture of the two, willow for daytime fire and hardwood for night might be the best you can get in the environment you're in though.
Thanks for an interesting video. Fascinated by anything to do with trees. About to have a wood burning stove installed. I'll need more wood than I thought.
What about Robinia pseudoacacia, known in the US as black locust? It is a fast growing tree with hard and dense wood with a high energy density. Here is a reference to an interesting study, a paper titled "Comparison of Different Wood Species as Raw Materials for Bioenergy" by Bojana Klašnja and coauthors.
That looks very interesting - thanks for the reference. We have planted a number of them, but they are not very happy. Our climate is not to their liking. I think we will find the best possible spot on our land and try again.
In eastern Scotland we tend to burn Birch, bought by weight, a ton load works for the sole heat source for a small bungalow in a stove rather than an open fire, for the entire winter, November to April.
That is good going. Sadly our house is to 'leaky' and needs more heat if we don't want to freeze to death.
I'm coppicing hazel, willow, chestnut and alder. If I could plant only one, on the experience of my last 7 years, it would be alder. Not as fast as the willow, but those you allow to grow a bit bigger are lovely and straight, a short seasoning from cutting and it splits a dream.
Hello. I live in a wet area in Northern Spain where soil is clayish and packed with organic matter, in fact it has an overdose of nitrogen. Alder trees are found near the rivers and they are absolutely beautiful. After reading your comment I am going to plant alder trees where all the rainwater ends up.
That souds really good. We do have an alder coppice as well, so I hope to show it in a future video. I really like the colour of the wood when you cut it!
Very interesting and informative. I live in the U.S. and heat with wood. I had never thought of using willow. Thanks for the video.
Glad it was helpful!
Nice to see you back! You have a good, calming way of making your videos and I also enjoy the topic of woodland management/homesteading.
Thank you for that. We were just having a short break, but couldn't stay away!
7:20 i love how you held and comforted the tree when you said that you wouldnt cut it down 😂❤
Well, I didn't want to scare it!
Hornbeam is meant to be good fire wood, maybe an alternative to ash? Oak is better used for timber really, just use the branches as fuel once felled as more of a by-product.
Efficient stove, insulation and proper seasoning are also a massive factor in the self sufficient balance, but a slightly different topic, great video, thanks.
What age did you first coppice the willow cuttings?
Very good video! Good info and obviously well researched. Thank you. Cheers from HB NZ
Glad you enjoyed it!
This just skims the surface. Harvesting drying, storing and using the biomass is not all equal, each type of firewood, fireplace and property will effect efficiency. Look forward to more films!
Thanks - there will be some on the way!
I have a few willows (caprea) at about 30yrs old that I pollard. After 5 yrs I end up with nice long poles that I use to supplement my log pile. I mix my wood in the fire as you say it does burn much quicker than hard logs. I have 'ash' and 'oak' but as the 'ash' is free of die back and are mature it's staying put as for the 'oak' I like the presence they give in the landscape. I'm lucky to get wood from my job. Great informative video. Subscribed. With regard to ADB, I have just finished clearing a sssi of 'ash' due to safety as it was on the north downs path. I found that they suffered badly from honey fungus due to being susceptible. So a lot where failing at the roots and felling some badly affected ones was a little tricky as the woods structure was compromised. Also they seemed to float down rather than crash due to losses of water weight
Thanks for that, I appreciate it. I'm glad that you don't have ash die back with yours. It is such a pity to see mature trees get ill with it.
I use a mix of wood on my fire. Willow is grand when it's dry just takes 2 or 3 years dry
Great video, very informative
Thanks for that!
Have you considered bamboo, grows extremely fast, and can be good for firewood in high efficiency stoves such as a rocket mass heater. Cheers
Thanks for exploring this issue so clearly. I've started propagating a fast growing hybrid poplar for firewood on about 2/3 of an acre on the east coast of the US. It's not very energy dense, but grows well in my poor soil in relatively dry summer conditions. It looks like they will be ready for harvesting every six or seven years. They also coppice very well. On the other end of the scale I'm trying an experiment with a small grove of osage orange, which is extremely energy dense and is supposed to be relatively fast growing. We shall see. I don't expect to fully heat my home with wood, just to offset other means and as a significant back-up in difficult times.
That sounds really good. I remember osage orange - they have really funky fruits! Glad the poplar are growing well for you - our land is a bit to wet for growing large amounts of them.
very nice video,
2 kg of fire wood = 9 kwh of heat.
but it have to be dry.
so weigh it al then do 1 kg in an oven, on 80 or 90 degrees. and weigh it again to get the dry weight.
that way you know how much heat will come out.
also all wood is the same. pine oak etc. ( oak burns more slowy )
2 kg dry = 9 kwh
Fascinating ❤
good stuff. Down my way in East sussex I do a lot of walking and the old coppiced woodlands are predominantly sweet chestnut. This may be because of the need also for fence posts for livestock however I have seen how quickly it regrows and it's very impressive. Coppices extremely well. Great firewood too. If you want to reduce the amount of firewood required though the major gains is in the fire itself. Its even more significant than the insulation in the house. I really think we a talking about factors of several hundred percent and think about how much less space your log pile would need, less space to grow, less work to process etc. etc.. Talking about the number of KWH is all well and good but one burner may be claiming vastly more of those theoretical KWHrs into the house than another. Modern stoves with high efficiency rating are referring to the efficiency of combustion, nothing to do with the heat actually claimed. It seems that because of regulations and modern day risk adversity we try to send as much heat out the flue as possible with zero attempt to engineer better solution! Are you aware of high efficiency burners like that in rocket stoves, and heat reclaimers like chimney bells etc.? It seems like it will be forever banished to the fringes of the internet and remain domain of DIYer pyromaniacs. There is very little interest in actually helping anyone use biomass for energy production at the point of use (obviously massively more efficient, especially for heat energy), all the while it's being burnt on a massive scale as a transition to greener sources of energy.. haha! Bit of a rant that turned into!
I’m in Scotland and burn almost exclusively willow, thinning, felling, wind fall etc. properly seasoned it burns very well.
Sounds good - if you are on the west coast, there should be plenty of rain for willow!
@ too much rain some might say 😂
@oleww50 yup!
You can do anything with a flat, well drained field, but land usually comes with those hard to use areas. The more uses you know about, the easier to make use of space. I find bees in particular changes which trees you value most. Willow and Linden(USA Basswood) grow well in swampy land. Pussy willow is some of the earliest pollen available and a large linden can put out enough nectar for 40 lbs of honey. The value of bee fodder can easily produce more value than the timber and syrup value of Sugar Maple. Sumac for instance is commonly thought of as a weed but an acre of it can produce 100 pounds of wild flower honey and if you can sell it at $10/pound over production costs, that's more to farmer value than maize or cattle.
Hi, we keep thinking of having bees. They are amazing creatures!
Very interesting, thanks. I suspect the correct answer is to try as much as possible to reduce the need for home heating! If you could get that 1 acre down to 1/2 an acre then that would be fantastic, given that the limiting factor in the UK is access to, and cost of, land.
Yes, that is a very important point. Insulation is super important. We just added a second pane of glass to our old sash windows - what a difference it made!
Come în România, you will have a lot land ...în România are old person how let land to rest
excellent information thanks , i am trying to set up a coppiced willow and hazel wood on heavy clay land in Lincolnshire have got a selection of willows and am testing them out but have found that the local willows ( not surprisingly ) appear to be the most vigorous, i did wonder if anybody had used to brash ( the twigs ) to make pellets ? any thoughts or is it still better to use it to protect the coppice growth points from deer ?
Hi! Adding the brash to the new growth was a normal thing to do in medieval times, but is frowned on today becasue the new growth will get tangled in it and be a pain when it is harvest time - especially with something fast growing. If shredded, it does make good mulch.
In response to your last question- I'm in sw Michigan, on 20 acres of woodland. It's a typical mix for this bioregion, predominantly oak, with maple, black cherry, beech, tupillo, big tooth aspen, sassafras and then some white pine and the occasional spruce. The maples here actually coppice quite well, even from mature trees. While I am working to introduce willow because our water table is excessively high (seasonally above ground high), I have not found it occurring here of its own. Much of my forest management work runs toward thinning, which means I'm taking a disproportionate number of small maples out. Some of that goes into fenceposts, the brash generally into dead hedges, so while it's a good portion of what I'm felling, not so much of what goes to our firewood. The firewood largely comes from the waste produced by my sawmill, which means mostly from the larger trees I take down, which run toward oaks. In short, our firewood is oak, maple and black cherry, in that order ;)
That is a big range - a quite different from what we have here. Good luck with the willows - it is wet, they should feel right at home.
Hi, eastern Ontario here from east of Algonquin Park:- you're in a transition zone there between the Laurentian forest region in the lower lakes to the east and north, the Carolinian zone to the south, and the Prairie Savannah region to the west but the proximity of Lake Michigan tends to keep things on the cool side plus the wet ground is also slow to heat up in summer so that keeps it cool and wet:- suggest you try swamp white oak, black maple, yellow birch, and eastern white cedar on the wetter ground for high-value timber and brash the lower limbs as necessary and keep cleaning out the woody undergrowth. You might even experiment with white spruce and balsam fir on the wet ground but its main value is for pulpwood whereas the heavy hardwoods can be used for furniture making and birch plywood so they're more valuable long-term. The brashings and thinnings could be chipped in a wood-chipper like the Bearcat series which are designed for small woodlots and you can actually burn them in wood-chip furnaces like those from Heizomat and Froling:- check out Biothermic in Ontario for brochures and specs but you need to find a local distributor there. The Ontario Woodlot Association has a lot of useful info for woodlot owners in the Laurentian forest region and you can find them at www.ontariowoodlot.com/ :- they're very practical and not an eco-fanatic group.
I'm mostly burning dead ash. I worked in woodland maintenance, and often harvested coppice for firewood. Hazel, crack willow, cob, downy birch and rowan all work well. Ash is by far the best IMO. Slower, but better fuel, and one of the few trees that can be burned unseasoned, even green! Since ash dieback works from the tips to the base, coppicing them could actually save their lives if you are cutting out the infected branches, which still burn.
The most common mistake I've seen is leaving too many shoots. Get out in the spring and remove all the new growths, except the few you actually want to grow. Most of the coppice I've worked on over the years suffered from neglect, and thinning new shoots is important work that often gets overlooked.
Rowan might be an alternative. The berries make good jam that goes well with meat.
Maple grows fast and burns well.
Both these types of trees have other uses than just firewood.
Thank you, that's interesting. I just got a 7 tonne eucalyptus (cut into rounds) from tree surgeon friends. It chansaws well &, despite the rumours, is pretty easy to split (would do so before it seasons tho). I recently read that 1kg of wood has 5kwh of energy but previously read that it was around 2kwh. Wondering what your thoughts were?
We went with Hybrid Willow, Hybrid Poplar, and American Sycamore.
Not ony for faster growth rate but - just as importantly when starting out - super easy propagation. Literally just poke twigs in the ground in very late Winter and they'll be fully rooted out and thriving by summer.
We do Pollarding instead, to keep new growth above Deer Browse Height.
Pollarding is wise - and a lot cheaper than a deer fence. How is the American Sycamore doing - are you in the UK?
@@theviewfromtheclouds
Midwest America - Ohio River Valley (Cincinnati-ish). The Sycamore is a weed-tree around here. Grows everywhere and thrives. It doesnt grow quite as fast but fast enough. Maybe 80% the growth rate ... but has slightly more BTU so it's just about the same return. Not a really noticeable difference.
The *real* reason for the Sycamore is Tree Hay. It produces significantly more leaf and the breeders in The Rabbitry prefer it over all others we've tried.
fascinating video, thank you
I would go black locust on bare ground. Fast growth and spreads well not depending on seedlings, a hot burn and provides cover for my oak ,cherry and beech that I value for wood and mast for game.
Ok, so I live in Donegal, cool and wet. We heat our house with wood, for the last 22years. Lots of wood from pallets and some bought in. We have 6 acres of ground. The trees I have successfully grown for burning are, willow, alder and birch. These all grow reasonable fast and burn well. Like you I planted ash which have mostly died. Also beech for hedging a great success. Also beech oak and horse chestnut for the future. We also have hazel, apple, plum and pear( not good, no fruit).ust not forget the holly, crab apple, goat willow, roan, scott's pine, bird cherry and sycamore. Actually the sycamore grows quickly and coppices so may be good for fire wood. Oh yes then there's the hawthorn and blackthorn, which I try to discourage. Won't mention the shrubs.
That sounds very much like our place. What is your soil like?
Sorry about the delay. I only just saw your reply. It is very rocky here with large rocky ridges. between the ridges the soil can be peaty. Otherwise there is a 6 to 12 inches of soil which is mixed sand, clay etc. Not much carbonaceous material. The land was grazed. The cattle eat all the trees. The ground can be very wet. We get lots of rain.
I’m in Alberta, I have a few Poplar and one large willow tree. (Lots of small willow bushes that won’t grow to firewood size) The rest is pasture and a rather large wet area. Last year I stuck cuttings from the large willow in the marshy area hoping to control the water somewhat. Now I hope to plant a bunch more next year and get firewood.
Sounds hopeful. They don't mind being waterlogged some of the time. We find that the wetter the ground is, the better they grow.
Have you forgotten about sycamore ? As a gardener in the north of England I had to deal with many a self sown sycamore sapling in the wrong place. If you don't get them young and small you find that they grow so fast that by the time you get around to dealing with them it's a lot more work - a stitch in time sort of thing.
Sycamore will coppice nicely also!
Sycamore is ruined in my wood by grey squirrels which also have spoilt 15year oak trees.
@@robstart8643 how do grey squirrels ruin your trees?
@jameskniskern2261 by stripping the bark off.They usually wait until the trees are nicely developing ie. When tree is between 10 and 15 years old.
They strip the bark which cuts off the circulation and eventually kills the tree. Greys seem to particularly like sycamore bark
Oak drys at about an inch a year. To get a 4" split oak log under 20% will take 3 or 4 years. Willow of the same size and split is one summer. Therefore you don't need as much storage.
A tree to consider if you want fast hardwood is the false acacia - grows really fast. Is really tough and burns really hot. The draw backs - it is very thorny when young, it suckers everywhere so got to plant well away from buildings. But you can coppice or pollard. You can pollard oaks this on your 20 year old oak will give you massive growth fast because you are keeping the roots system intact along with it's microbiology so instead of just a single trunk you may well get 3 or 4 growing to same diameter in just a few years. Hornbeam is another to consider absolutely the top heat producer. Best at around 6 inch diameter. Will grow as a hedge / wind break tough tree holds leaves looks good winter and summer.
It would be interesting to know how much carbon is sequestered per year by different tree species at varied planting distances. It should then be possible to maximize heat output in terms of kWh per acre.
@@heron6462 If I remember correctly. Cambridge university is doing / has done pretty much as you are thinking. They are using some of their own land. I don't know if they have published but you could I am sure ask them how they are getting along - obviously this is a long term project.
@@ashleylaw Thanks - I'll follow this up.
Black locust?
@@ellenorbjornsdottir1166 Yes I think that is American name for it. The con is the flowers are overpowering and could trigger allergies.
Consider planting some gum trees. Most varieties are fast-growing, coppice well, and they provide excellent firewood. I think snow gums or sugar gums would do well, but there are several varieties that might suit your purposes. Other benefits are that are allelopathic, typically unappetising to deer or other browsing animals, but would attract blue-faced honeyeaters.
Northern or boreal forests of northern Alberta, plenty of Populus Tremuloides. They grow quickly, very large and have a very good BTU rating. When cut and debarked the wood is very hard. Not sure if it would be "invasive" in your neck o' the woods but that may be an option for your land?