You can clear all the bracken by whpping it when its still young. You would whip their tops off above knee height well clear of the saplings. It can be very quick with a ~7 foot long thin light stick. Try a few with different weights and curves to find the weapon of choice and develop advanced bracken combat moves. After a couple weeks of cropping up, the tender bracken shoots get tougher and can no longer be quickly whipped away. But its efficient and satisfying to clear areas before they harden. They crop up again, over a few weeks but do so less vigorously and then only minatuer specimens remain, which can be outcompeted by grasses and the saplings. I fear if you just clear around the saplings, the roots of untouched bracken nearby will re-invade persistently and take more effort overall.
Hi Andy, thanks for your comment. Yes much easier to control when young as you say, the issue is you only have a short window to do it and we can't always be there at the right time. We've actually whipped (and strimmed) the bracken the last couple of years (if you go back in the channel you can find the videos). And our bracken seems to grow back just as strong after whipping. So to really stay on top of it we'd have to do in every few weeks May-August. Unfortunately we have too much bracken and too little time to do this! In hindsight would have been better to have cut it monthly the year before we planted the trees, maybe would have knocked it back enough to have given the trees a couple of years head start.
@@diverseforests Timing is critical - as late as possible to make a big impact, but just before it is too strong to 'swish'. Swishing can go far faster than a strimmer, about the speed of athletic scything with much less force, but very briskly - about an acre an hour. If the root network is strong then it will shoot up quickly again after, but the plant takes a big hit because it needs to catch as much light as possible. If it was really able to rebound indefinetly it would make a supreme biomass crop, but after 2nd or 3rd clearance, its lost out a couple of months of "solar income" and can only put up little stragglers. The hectare I cleared last year in the highlands, is only putting up stragglers this spring, and Im about to expand its circumference. If you cant deal with your bracken that way, then a walk behind flail mower would be ideal to shred it in june and maybe again in august, just avoiding the ole sticks flagging the sapplings. We have lots of lovely windfallen alder to process this year as it seasons with roots in the air. Harvesting windfall feels particularly nature friendly. Best of luck this season !
CCF does not work in the UK due to growth rates, rotation length and pests (deer/hares) - you will lose money if when it comes to harvesting if not clear felling. "Broadleaf CCF" is more viable but a 200 year oak rotation is hard to maintain over many generations..
Hi Josh. Yes many people in the UK forestry industry would agree with you. I guess the issue is there aren't many good examples of continuous cover forestry in the UK, and none which share decades of financial data, so people assume it doesn't work here. However when you dig into the reasons behind this perception there's many good reasons why it would work here. The best thing I can point you to is the SLM Partners study from 2016 which gives a good overview of the environmental and financial benefits of CCF compared to clear fell, link below. They went on to raise a €40M CCF forestry fund in Ireland. The other thing to note is since changes in the additionality test for the woodland carbon code, CCF generally still gets carbon units whereas clear fell doesn't. This makes a significant difference and mitigates some of the supposed risk associated with CCF. static1.squarespace.com/static/60a2b4a6a24b351d37e6cb45/t/60b00b741573902e57770814/1622150006441/SLM-Partners-Investing-in-Continuous-Cover-Forestry-Sept-2016.pdf
