WHich woods to coppice

[Tony]

Can all types of tree be coppiced? The shoots (in all their sizes) that come off of the coppiced trees are really useful for bushcraft, nice and straight :mrgreen: And what age/size does a tree need to be before you do coppice it?

[Anonymous]

Hi Tony, Hazel and chestnut are the are the ones I know definetly.Both should be coppiced on a seven year cycle, cut in winter (less sap in the wood) to sprout back up in the summer. Others can be "polarded", such as willow. Kind of when you cut a tree down to just the standing trunk and it sprouts loads of nice straight shoots in the spring. There used to be alot of pollarded willow on the somerset levels lining the lanes like spikey punk trees.
Cheers Rich :-o

[Jamie]

Hey Tony

Simply put, most trees can be coppiced - the only caveat to that being the conifers which cannot.

The determining factors for coppicing (in commercial terms) is the speed in which the tree is able to put up new shoots for use as material at a later date and the local area requirements for that specific coppiced material. Historically, woodlands reflected the needs of the local crafts.

Some trees such as Oak and Sycamore although they can be coppiced, are not particularly viable as their growth as a coppice is very slow. Traditionally they have always been used as standards (timber - as opposed to wood - trees).

The common coppice trees (wood trees) have been, for example, hazel, willow, sweet chestnut or ash. They are commercially viable because they are quick to throw up new shoots and their coppice rotation, in the case of hazel, is about 7 years. Therefore a woodsman would rotate throughout his woodland coppicing one 'coup' per year until, in year 7, he gets back to the original coup only to start over again.

All the best

Jamie

[Jack]

Dear Tony.

The answer to your question is yes and no,..... confused? Well its like this. Any broadleaved tree ( trees that have broad leaves) can be coppiced, note that I said broadleaved and not deciduous ( deciduous meaning a tree that sheds its leafs in the autumn) as Holly is a broadleaved tree that will coppice but keeps its green leaves all year round (an Evergreen). However, you should never cut a Holly in a woodland as this is where the Devil sits and as long as the Holly is still standing you will know where he is!!


You can coppice a tree at any age to a point. Our broadleaved trees have this amazing ability of self regeneration and this is down to the fact the just under the bark there are buds called epicomic buds. Basically these buds grow with the tree so they remain just under the bark. They stay dormant all the time the tree is healthy, these buds fire into action as soon as the tree is under threat from disease, animal browsing, lack of light and by someone felling it!! The hormones in the tree recognises this threat and starts to throw up new shoots, hence we can crop trees indefinitely by exploiting the trees own survival mechanism.
Jack
Woodland Organics.

PS. Coppice is Norman French for cut!