Started doing this a few years ago for mostly the exact same reasons. Now I am able to harvest again, and make even more biochar, which means I have now enough soil built or amended to scale up next year thrice of this year. Yes! I also want to see pollarding become more common
Wood cut when dormant doesn’t just last long, it’s more dimensionally stable and much less likely to check badly, less likely to become buggy or spalted.
In Denmark we used to have managed, rotational, coppiced systems integrated with grazing animals . They were among the most biodiverse areas. Due to a mosaic patern, I guess.
For me pollarding was thus a way of using wood from the tree over the course of many years, rather than cutting it down and having merely one-time access to its wood. Enjoy winter my friend.
I finally learned about this smart concept. I am in Michigan. We can do this here easily. People just need encouragement to actually do it. I am in the country. I have invasive species bushes on my property. I will have those cut down and make fences with the branches. All the people who post about pollarding and about coppicing are doing everybody a great favor. I have a couple of old willows, 50 years old, I will pollard them and I KNOW they will put out new growth. I planted a pussy willow 6 years ago and I let it grow, it is amazing what flexibility and growth and beauty is has. I will use it to plant sticks from it and make hedges. Thank you for teaching and giving hope. All the best for you.
Good job Richard - I'll echo many of the sentiments in the below comments and I do hope that you let some of the oaks\ash\lime grow a bit larger. Oaks are one the of the species in the world that has the most species depending on it for its life cycle, and up at your latitude it's rare to see oaks as they were all cut down for beams and longboats. I myself have succesfully let several oaks grow even further than where you are up in Hamar in Norway - and the amount of life these trees bring to my property is invaluable.
Richard If you hawe the opputunity you shuld visit "Visingsö" (Vättern) and the big Oak forest. "The Swedish Navy planted oak trees on the island in the 19th century to provide strategically important timber for future ship construction. The timber is now ready but no longer required for ship construction. Consequently, Visingsö is partially covered by oak forests.(wiki)"
While spruce may not pollard the traditional way, they (and hemlock, I believe) will transform their uppermost lateral branches into uprights in just a couple years, which can then be cut slightly lower down the main trunk again. We discovered this when we cut our Christmas tree at snow level and never went to clear it in the spring. We only did this not-pollard/coppice twice before taking the tree out completely, so I can't speak to any thickness limits on lateral branches inhibiting their upward growth.
That's great, I have been thinking of pollarding most of my ash, elm and chestnuts on the south side of my house as they take a lot of sunlight(I'm on Solar so sun is appreciated), they are quite tall and I will see with a professional to cut them to size. Most are about 20 years old. my friends say that pollading is ugly but if I can get most of my firewood and woodchips from my property, that would be great! Thanks for the nice vid!
Fantastic, you got me thinking of mechanized tree hay production. QUESTION: how do you like the woven fabric you showed in the video after 5 years. Do you get rooting through the fabric? Do you ever foresee being able to pull it up?
Thanks for this "forest" update. It looks like the time of the farm has done you well :). In contrast with Richards experience, I have had a lot of difficulties in pollarding birch. They seem to suffer a lot, probably I'm doing something wrong but didn't find out what. In my experience, hornbeam, oak, willow and alder are very easy and useful to pollard. Yew is also very easy to pollard, but the fumes are toxic if you burn them. Because of the toxicity, yew is very sustainable and its better to use it as fence posts or for making a bow :) instead of burning it. Black locust is also easy to pollard and very sustainable wood for fence posts.
Very interesting video. Please make more and update us on your techniques. This is not done in here in the USA so i would love to learn more on this subject.
So... ... the boundary trees - leave un-pollarded say 10 or 20% to minimise the effects on the larger (birds and insects, etc.) wildlife - you still get your "pasture" space with more light, etc., etc. - assuming the space isn't a long thin strip, but tending to a square/round space in total.
Awesome, I can barely bring myself to prune a fruit tree because I don't like to get in way of nature too much haha, but pollarding is quite productive, I just hope you leave some of the Oaks to battle the forces of nature by themselves
Interesting, last year I planted out a few hundred oak trees, all were approx 12 years old, and I pruned the tops of the oak. I did this to help the trees survive, less budding leafs would put less of a stress on the roots, they catch less wind and the trees are on land grazed by sheep. So I suppose I was pollarding the trees 🤔
Hi, We are trying to understand if tree fodder will fit into our operation for two purposes. 1, supplement during drought and 2, winter feed when grass is dormant. We are in North America zone 5 with periods with snow cover but usually only for a week in duration but also with freezing rain. One specific requirement is minimum labor to feed with a goal of total animal self feeding. We understand coppicing would take place periodically to allow self feeding at ground+ level. While summer drought grazing appears very doable after shrub/tree establishment winter grazing has us scratching our heads. One thought is not allowing any grazing on land with coppiced trees during the summer, then grazing only after the grass is no longer available. Since we have zero experience implementing winter tree fodder is this possible? Would the leaves all drop at first frost (assume willows/honey locust/popular types) thus potential yield would be low? Would fallen leaves be eaten? Any other thoughts how winter tree fodder might be implemented with zero manual pre harvesting and storage of tree fodder? Thanks for the feedback.
Oak leaves are pretty poor fodder/food no? And if pollarded then nut yield would be nada, right? I've never thought to pollard/coppice oaks because of this. Am I mistaken?
No you are right Ben, I think oaks are too few and far between to be pollarded around here. I have not been chopping the oaks and think it was a good idea
Thanks! @@regenerativeagriculture I ask because i am in the same situation with our oaks - though oaks maybe aren't quite as rare as where you are - they are rare in this area of New England. Enough so that i can't imagine anything but giving them lots of crown space. Though I do have a macrocarpa x gambelli (i think, Bur -English) columnar that will shade my gardens eventually which i'll pollard when it comes to it.
looking at your video on ancient oaks, i was wondering whether pollarding some of those would invigorate them once again. Also, funny about birches not taking kindly to pollarding, i remember someone once telling me that they'd root from windfall. could you train an older tree by starting from the tips and gradually working your way back?
Hey man. Found your video as I was looking for inspiration on pollarding my young birch here in Scotland. Before I go searching through your other videos, and in case I lose this one 😅, mind tellin me if you had success with the birch pollarding in the end? Like you said, I've heard that they're not big fans of either pollard or coppice unless super young. Thanks in advance!
Can you tell us how to start coppicing and pollarding woodland from scratch? This is what we face. What would the yearly process be. I would like to pollard for tree hay and also coppicing for firewood.
I understand you pollard the tree by cutting it at the top, but won't trimming the sides to shape the tree cause it to sprout there too? I'd like to keep the trunks open, how would I be able to do that?
hi richard, thanks for the info! though i would be careful with feeding oak to livestock because of its toxticity. maybe there are more plants and trees to beware of. best to check that out.
Joe Nadeau Look into Shana Hanson at Three Streams Farm in Belfast, she's got a SARE grant doing pollarding in her woods for her dairy goats. I worked for her this summer climbing with rope and harness. The pollards are mostly young but worth seeing if you're nearby. She's eccentric but a nice woman and open to visitors last I checked.
"daisugi" ore Japanese polarding gan be done with conifers. but be be cautious to leave some green brunches. the dificould thing is to start but even picea abies works if done right. snd they very vigorous. u cane make a polard tree for xmes tree production there is a spruse in Switzerland "fuchstane" at diemtigtal whitch wase toped by a storm about 300 year ago. now it grows 9 massive trunks it forks 3 meter about ground. its about 65m3 of wood one of the colest tree i ever saw
Good work, thank you for telling about the benefits ~ have learned something ~ but I agre5 with some fellow commentors, to leave some of the here and there unpollarded.
please keep a few beautiful oak trees not pollarded. Do it with the ones that are on top of a mount or sthg like that, mostly to be able to keep "sacred spots on the farm, places where you want to come and sit under a beautiful old tree that has never been touched, just like those you went to visit with Grace in england
Do all the others, Richard, but let the oaks grow to full beauty. I'd leave a few aspen too, just for the relaxing sound of the leaves rustling in the breeze. These are valid reasons. Don't be too practically minded, please rethink this - pollard most, but not all, trees.
"(Be)cause it's going to be some years I get my Woolly Mammoth." You might consider Mastodons instead, as the they were browsers and not grazers like mammoths. Also, the old timers say that they were a lot better around kids ;-)
It was a lot of discussions after this dry summer in Sweden. The conclusion are that it's not worth the effort. You get so little food from it. It might be worth it if you can cut it in a pasture and the animals can eat it directly in the summer.
Great video, Richard (thanks!) - been looking for info like this for a while. If anyone finds (or knows of) a good resource for species that respond well to pollarding/coppacing, could you send a link?
Great video on a very interesting subject, integrating woodlands and pasture. I'm reading Steve Gabriels book "Silvopasture - A guide to managing grazing animals, forage crops, and trees in a temperate farm ecosystem". I highly reccomend it to people interested in bringing livestock into the woods or planting trees in pasture. It also covers trees and shrubs as fodder.
Interesting... But you will loose all value from timber (sawmill) and pulpwood, right? -too short logs, damaged wood... Many of those trees are fast growing and would give a return in 10 - 20 years (thinning => pulp, posts, firewood) and much more later Birch suffers greatly from heavy pruning, at least all those I have seen (many) - a beautiful, valuable tree transformed to a dying bush... Selective pruning (not pollarding) would give high value timber, eventually - and leave space for grazing True, many trees are great for pollarding (traditional willow alleys, beautiful) - maybe the benefits make up for loss of other values? Looking forward to see the results of you work!
Hi Richard, it's been a year now. Could you do a short video to show the growth since you've pollarded? Thanks :)
Started doing this a few years ago for mostly the exact same reasons. Now I am able to harvest again, and make even more biochar, which means I have now enough soil built or amended to scale up next year thrice of this year.
Yes! I also want to see pollarding become more common
Pollarding was common here in Sweden too! The use of tree hay was also very common but unfortunately a bit forgotten.
Wood cut when dormant doesn’t just last long, it’s more dimensionally stable and much less likely to check badly, less likely to become buggy or spalted.
Just found this video would love an update to see how the trees are getting on. Very informative thanks
Thanks for such an informational video, before this I would have never considered pollarding any trees I have!
In Denmark we used to have managed, rotational, coppiced systems integrated with grazing animals . They were among the most biodiverse areas. Due to a mosaic patern, I guess.
Hi Richard, it's been a year now since you've pollarded that patch. Can you show some images of the trees? Thanks
Great to see productive forestry systems. I am playing with similar ideas in the tropics pollarding twice a year.
For me pollarding was thus a way of using wood from the tree over the course of many years, rather than cutting it down and having merely one-time access to its wood. Enjoy winter my friend.
I finally learned about this smart concept. I am in Michigan. We can do this here easily. People just need encouragement to actually do it. I am in the country. I have invasive species bushes on my property. I will have those cut down and make fences with the branches. All the people who post about pollarding and about coppicing are doing everybody a great favor. I have a couple of old willows, 50 years old, I will pollard them and I KNOW they will put out new growth. I planted a pussy willow 6 years ago and I let it grow, it is amazing what flexibility and growth and beauty is has. I will use it to plant sticks from it and make hedges. Thank you for teaching and giving hope. All the best for you.
Good job Richard - I'll echo many of the sentiments in the below comments and I do hope that you let some of the oaks\ash\lime grow a bit larger. Oaks are one the of the species in the world that has the most species depending on it for its life cycle, and up at your latitude it's rare to see oaks as they were all cut down for beams and longboats.
I myself have succesfully let several oaks grow even further than where you are up in Hamar in Norway - and the amount of life these trees bring to my property is invaluable.
Richard
If you hawe the opputunity you shuld visit "Visingsö" (Vättern) and the big Oak forest.
"The Swedish Navy planted oak trees on the island in the 19th century to provide strategically important timber for future ship construction. The timber is now ready but no longer required for ship construction. Consequently, Visingsö is partially covered by oak forests.(wiki)"
While spruce may not pollard the traditional way, they (and hemlock, I believe) will transform their uppermost lateral branches into uprights in just a couple years, which can then be cut slightly lower down the main trunk again. We discovered this when we cut our Christmas tree at snow level and never went to clear it in the spring. We only did this not-pollard/coppice twice before taking the tree out completely, so I can't speak to any thickness limits on lateral branches inhibiting their upward growth.
This is a very interesting concept that you never hear of in the states. Thank you very much for your explanation.
That's great, I have been thinking of pollarding most of my ash, elm and chestnuts on the south side of my house as they take a lot of sunlight(I'm on Solar so sun is appreciated), they are quite tall and I will see with a professional to cut them to size. Most are about 20 years old. my friends say that pollading is ugly but if I can get most of my firewood and woodchips from my property, that would be great! Thanks for the nice vid!
Fantastic, you got me thinking of mechanized tree hay production. QUESTION: how do you like the woven fabric you showed in the video after 5 years. Do you get rooting through the fabric? Do you ever foresee being able to pull it up?
Thanks for this brilliant video. Pollarding’s something that’s been on my mind recently. And good ideas for integrated, increased production
Is there any update videos?
this actually excites me! i love this method of using trees that will keep growing for hundreds of years.
great natural regeneration of the monocultural forest land take off like that!
Thanks for this "forest" update. It looks like the time of the farm has done you well :).
In contrast with Richards experience, I have had a lot of difficulties in pollarding birch. They seem to suffer a lot, probably I'm doing something wrong but didn't find out what.
In my experience, hornbeam, oak, willow and alder are very easy and useful to pollard. Yew is also very easy to pollard, but the fumes are toxic if you burn them. Because of the toxicity, yew is very sustainable and its better to use it as fence posts or for making a bow :) instead of burning it. Black locust is also easy to pollard and very sustainable wood for fence posts.
Jef Vanparijs
I'm not sure 'sustainable' is what you meant, more like 'long-lasting, durable, rot-resistant'
correct
Welcome back, my dude.
Excellent! Looking forward to new venture.
you must be one of the most intelligent farmers on the planet - very interesting video again. Thanks!!
Very interesting video. Please make more and update us on your techniques. This is not done in here in the USA so i would love to learn more on this subject.
So... ... the boundary trees - leave un-pollarded say 10 or 20% to minimise the effects on the larger (birds and insects, etc.) wildlife - you still get your "pasture" space with more light, etc., etc. - assuming the space isn't a long thin strip, but tending to a square/round space in total.
Very interesting video.
Richard, what will you be using the timber for? Will you still put chips on the pathways?
It's never too early to think about these things: can you name your first three mammoths Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup? For the lulz.
Awesome, I can barely bring myself to prune a fruit tree because I don't like to get in way of nature too much haha, but pollarding is quite productive, I just hope you leave some of the Oaks to battle the forces of nature by themselves
Interesting, last year I planted out a few hundred oak trees, all were approx 12 years old, and I pruned the tops of the oak. I did this to help the trees survive, less budding leafs would put less of a stress on the roots, they catch less wind and the trees are on land grazed by sheep. So I suppose I was pollarding the trees 🤔
Hi, We are trying to understand if tree fodder will fit into our operation for two purposes. 1, supplement during drought and 2, winter feed when grass is dormant. We are in North America zone 5 with periods with snow cover but usually only for a week in duration but also with freezing rain.
One specific requirement is minimum labor to feed with a goal of total animal self feeding.
We understand coppicing would take place periodically to allow self feeding at ground+ level.
While summer drought grazing appears very doable after shrub/tree establishment winter grazing has us scratching our heads. One thought is not allowing any grazing on land with coppiced trees during the summer, then grazing only after the grass is no longer available.
Since we have zero experience implementing winter tree fodder is this possible? Would the leaves all drop at first frost (assume willows/honey locust/popular types) thus potential yield would be low? Would fallen leaves be eaten?
Any other thoughts how winter tree fodder might be implemented with zero manual pre harvesting and storage of tree fodder?
Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks for another great vid! Pollarding + hugelkultur ftw!
Oak leaves are pretty poor fodder/food no? And if pollarded then nut yield would be nada, right? I've never thought to pollard/coppice oaks because of this. Am I mistaken?
No you are right Ben, I think oaks are too few and far between to be pollarded around here. I have not been chopping the oaks and think it was a good idea
Thanks! @@regenerativeagriculture I ask because i am in the same situation with our oaks - though oaks maybe aren't quite as rare as where you are - they are rare in this area of New England. Enough so that i can't imagine anything but giving them lots of crown space. Though I do have a macrocarpa x gambelli (i think, Bur -English) columnar that will shade my gardens eventually which i'll pollard when it comes to it.
looking at your video on ancient oaks, i was wondering whether pollarding some of those would invigorate them once again. Also, funny about birches not taking kindly to pollarding, i remember someone once telling me that they'd root from windfall. could you train an older tree by starting from the tips and gradually working your way back?
Check on-line, you could do this from an older trees, but younger trees take it easier. Might be what we do with a friends tree(?).
Hey man. Found your video as I was looking for inspiration on pollarding my young birch here in Scotland. Before I go searching through your other videos, and in case I lose this one 😅, mind tellin me if you had success with the birch pollarding in the end? Like you said, I've heard that they're not big fans of either pollard or coppice unless super young. Thanks in advance!
Can you tell us how to start coppicing and pollarding woodland from scratch? This is what we face. What would the yearly process be. I would like to pollard for tree hay and also coppicing for firewood.
I understand you pollard the tree by cutting it at the top, but won't trimming the sides to shape the tree cause it to sprout there too? I'd like to keep the trunks open, how would I be able to do that?
Pecan trees do this too; but their fruit is really good in 10-20 years too…
Wow! such a cool idea, never considered it!
hi richard, thanks for the info! though i would be careful with feeding oak to livestock because of its toxticity. maybe there are more plants and trees to beware of. best to check that out.
You're obviously guided. So now YOU can guide me as well: Thanks, highly appreciated
Really great topic, going to try some pollarding at our property in Maine.
Joe Nadeau Look into Shana Hanson at Three Streams Farm in Belfast, she's got a SARE grant doing pollarding in her woods for her dairy goats. I worked for her this summer climbing with rope and harness. The pollards are mostly young but worth seeing if you're nearby. She's eccentric but a nice woman and open to visitors last I checked.
Belfast Maine or Ireland? Thanks for commenting
@@joenadeau4419 Maine :) finally found how to check replies, haha
When would you take tree hay?
Joanna Benson
Whenever the leaves reach full size
"daisugi" ore Japanese polarding gan be done with conifers. but be be cautious to leave some green brunches. the dificould thing is to start but even picea abies works if done right. snd they very vigorous. u cane make a polard tree for xmes tree production
there is a spruse in Switzerland "fuchstane" at diemtigtal whitch wase toped by a storm about 300 year ago. now it grows 9 massive trunks it forks 3 meter about ground. its about 65m3 of wood one of the colest tree i ever saw
Great video on an interesting topic. What type of impact do you see this having on wind abatement where you're pollarding?
Good work, thank you for telling about the benefits ~ have learned something ~ but I agre5 with some fellow commentors, to leave some of the here and there unpollarded.
Wait...whut?!? I want on that woolly mammoth list with you! (about 10 minutes in) 🐘😉
Informative! I’m looking to transition forested land into permaculture...
please keep a few beautiful oak trees not pollarded. Do it with the ones that are on top of a mount or sthg like that, mostly to be able to keep "sacred spots on the farm, places where you want to come and sit under a beautiful old tree that has never been touched, just like those you went to visit with Grace in england
Do all the others, Richard, but let the oaks grow to full beauty. I'd leave a few aspen too, just for the relaxing sound of the leaves rustling in the breeze. These are valid reasons.
Don't be too practically minded, please rethink this - pollard most, but not all, trees.
"(Be)cause it's going to be some years I get my Woolly Mammoth."
You might consider Mastodons instead, as the they were browsers and not grazers like mammoths.
Also, the old timers say that they were a lot better around kids ;-)
Not to mention the fact that most all trenches where lined with woven Pollarded sticks
Try the Stihl brand for a light chainsaw; or an electric chainsaw--both can be less than 5-10 pounds
Still not smart to go above shoulder height, got someone at work who got knockback and got the saw in his face😢
It was a lot of discussions after this dry summer in Sweden. The conclusion are that it's not worth the effort. You get so little food from it. It might be worth it if you can cut it in a pasture and the animals can eat it directly in the summer.
Great video, Richard (thanks!) - been looking for info like this for a while. If anyone finds (or knows of) a good resource for species that respond well to pollarding/coppacing, could you send a link?
Thank you!
so damn interesting , tx
Great video on a very interesting subject, integrating woodlands and pasture. I'm reading Steve Gabriels book "Silvopasture - A guide to managing grazing animals, forage crops, and trees in a temperate farm ecosystem".
I highly reccomend it to people interested in bringing livestock into the woods or planting trees in pasture. It also covers trees and shrubs as fodder.
Just don’t try to pollard the lilac trees too low, ours are just coming back after 20 years or so 🥵
Ah, the Whomping Willow was a pollard.
Interesting...
But you will loose all value from timber (sawmill) and pulpwood, right?
-too short logs, damaged wood...
Many of those trees are fast growing and would give a return in 10 - 20 years (thinning => pulp, posts, firewood) and much more later
Birch suffers greatly from heavy pruning, at least all those I have seen (many) - a beautiful, valuable tree transformed to a dying bush...
Selective pruning (not pollarding) would give high value timber, eventually - and leave space for grazing
True, many trees are great for pollarding (traditional willow alleys, beautiful) - maybe the benefits make up for loss of other values?
Looking forward to see the results of you work!
Let goats eat the lower branches! :)
not good tree management