A special event afforded ICF and SRFS members the opportunity to visit Glentress Forest in the Scottish Borders to learn about its management and ongoing development. Hilary Burke reports.
OF all the public forests in Southern Scotland, Glentress seems to hold a special place in the hearts of all the forestry professionals fortunate enough to have spent some part of their working lives involved in its development. Since the Forestry Commission acquired land in this part of the Tweed Valley, the plantations east of the market town of Peebles have been at the forefront of British timber and forestry advancement.
Forestry and Land Scotland kindly invited members of both the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF) and the Scottish Royal Forestry Society (SRFS) to meet at the Glentress Gateway Visitor Centre in late 2019. Sallie Bailey, regional manager (south), was on hand to explain the direction the Scottish Government’s agency is taking. John Ogilvie was able to provide a more detailed overview of the land management plans.
Centenary celebrations had been taking place in 2019 and it was fitting that Sallie Bailey started proceedings with a look back at the history of state forestry in Scotland. The first government acquisition of land was made in 1907 at Inverliever, a dozen years before the formation of the Forestry Commission. It was the latter’s founding in 1919, however, that provided the huge impetus for rebuilding the nation’s timber stocks.
Lord Lovat and Sir John Sutherland, it was noted, made a great contribution in the early years to the restoration of forests and woodlands. Their zeal and ambition held sway not only in Scotland, but throughout Great Britain. More local to the Tweed Valley was the success of the Glentress Forest School set up by district officer T. A. Robbie in the early 1950s. A one-year course was standard for forestry foremen and a two-year course for foresters. The establishment took a huge step forward in making forestry management more professional.
Half a century on and, in the wake of the countryside shutdown of the foot-and-mouth crisis, state forestry was in the forefront of providing open space for the public. In the south of Scotland, the Seven Stanes mountain bike trails were drawing in ever-increasing numbers of visitors. Now FLS is adding to the mix with micro-businesses and renewable energy – the latter sometimes in the form of wind farms.
Both the SRFS and the ICF are organisations with wide and experienced memberships and their adherents are rarely backward in coming forward, as the saying goes. The mention of mountain biking and windfarms was bound to raise the hackles amongst at least a few of those present. Jeremy Thomson and Iain Laidlaw had co-ordinated well with FLS to arrange a comprehensive tour of Glentress Forest with ample time for in-depth discussion of the issues arising.
PLANTING HISTORY
The first venue on the agenda was a visit to survivors of some of the early plantings under the auspices of the Forestry Commission. The impressive Douglas firs and Sitka spruces had been established in 1926 and were now interspersed with youngster Norway spruces from the 1950s. John Ogilvie and his colleagues had set a challenge for the visitors: one Douglas fir and one Sitka spruce had been chosen and marked and the latest forestry technology had been used to estimate timber volumes and top heights. The visitors were invited to put their forestry experience to the test and estimate heights and volumes from the forest road. Talk about putting people on the spot!
The mix of species typical of coniferous plantations in the Tweed Valley was, to some extent, inherited when the newly formed Forestry Commission acquired 1,000 acres of land from the Haystoun Estate in 1920. Additional to this area were 266 acres of established woodlands – mostly formed by 1903–6 plantings of European larch. Despite the traditional use of this tree in the Tweed Valley, these plantations were to fail fairly badly at Glentress.
Forestry Commission plantings of European larch in 1921 and subsequent blocks established in 1931 on a later acquisition of neighbouring land were to suffer the same fate – dieback, poor stem form and larch canker leading to species substitution. Fortunately, Douglas fir, Sitka spruce and Norway spruce planted by the Haystoun Estate and later by the FC had, in most locations, performed adequately or well.
During his tenure as district officer, T. A. Robbie had taken the time to compile a compact but concise history of the first half-century of Glentress Forest. Overuse of European larch in the 1931 planting had been an error, he conceded, especially when the warning signs should have been noted. On the other hand, the establishment of the Forestry Training School in the disused Ministry of Labour camp was undoubtedly a success.
The young men destined to be foremen and foresters were able to clear the backlog of postponed thinning operations in Glentress between 1946 and 1950. They all gained valuable experience with the cross-cut saw and the snedding axe. Trainees arriving later would carry out the same tasks, along with completing their studies, in the other FC forests in the Tweed Valley. Many, no doubt, will have appreciated the posting. After all, it was only a short bicycle ride down to the cinema and the hostelries of Peebles after a hard day’s work in the forest.
TOURISM AND RECREATION
The ‘sit-up-and-beg’ bicycles of the post-war years have now been superceded by the multi-geared, ergonomically perfected carbon-fibre MTBs. Members of the SRFS and ICF were well outnumbered by the mountain bikers at the next venue, the Buzzard’s Nest. Sallie Bailey and John Ogilvie outlined the projects FLS has in the pipeline for tourism and recreation development at Glentress.
Buzzard’s Nest has become a real magnet for both bike-riding families and the most dedicated cycling fanatics. They contribute financially to the public purse according to the time they wish to leave their vehicles in the car park. Yet things are set to change in this neck of the woods. A business partner, Forest Holidays, has committed to investing £10 million in a complex of holiday chalets (complete with hot tubs) at the site. FLS, for its part, has agreed to spend £1.5 million to relocate the off-road cycling hub to another part of Glentress.
Both the SRFS and the ICF encompass members with backgrounds in public and private forestry – a good number with a foot in both camps. There was always going to be lively discussion about the interface between the professional growing of timber and the provision of amenities for the general public. While Forest Holidays is the successor to the FC’s Forest Cabins, the company is now in private hands. Would that create a conflict of interest in respect of forest management and harvesting operations?
John Ogilvie explained there were opportunities to convert the forest in the immediate vicinity of the Buzzard’s Nest to lower-intervention woodland, but ways would be found to arrange for essential operations to be carried out. Thinnings in the surrounding area would be able to continue when necessary, although contracts may have to be drawn up with an awareness of the particular constraints associated with high-public-use areas. One major infrastructure development – the Glentress Haul Route – is already in place and has been designed to ensure timber and machinery movements can avoid, as far as possible, the areas of the forest most intensively used by visitors.
Sallie Bailey reiterated the sensational success of mountain biking in the south of Scotland, which has now become a 24/7 activity. Powerful new lighting solutions now tempt ambitious riders to get their thrills in the totally different world of the darkened forest. No longer are the lights seen in the small hours above Glentress those of working harvesters, forwarders or timber wagons. This new breed of night-time visitor also requires increased vigilance and security measures from the wildlife rangers, used for so long to having the darkened forest to themselves in the deer-culling seasons.
It was admitted the intensive use of the woodlands by mountain bikers could cause issues with other forest users. Sallie Bailey mentioned that one of the Tweed Valley’s plantations – known locally as the Golfie – presented a real problem for FLS as a landowner. 100 km of unofficial downhill MTB routes had been developed by bikers in what is officially named Caberston Forest. Through social media, the unsanctioned nature of the excessively ‘extreme’ routes was an irresistible attraction to the most ambitious MTB riders.
The approach taken by FLS was to engage local MTB enthusiasts – respected by the global biking fraternity – to assist in addressing the issue. The Tweed Valley Trails Association would be able to inform its co-enthusiasts of the problems encountered by the landowner and stakeholders with an interest in Caberston Forest. Three sanctioned trails have now been rebuilt by volunteers, with unacceptable risks for riders eliminated. Many more remain to be upgraded to allow riders to sustain their adrenaline levels while not compromising the Scottish government and their fellow citizens with the inherent dangers they choose to confront.
FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD
The new Glentress haul road was next on the itinerary. Permission had been obtained for a construction contractor to open up a quarry in Glentress to extract and process a large quantity of stone suitable for road construction. The new road had been constructed to the latest FC civil engineering standards, together with the designated spurs. It was mentioned by one forest officer that any remaining unused material in the quarry was the property of the contractor; but he would be reminded very shortly that if he wanted to exercise his right to use it in other works he had better shift it fairly quickly.
No doubt the contract included the clause ‘time is of the essence’. There were not such severe time constraints for the afforestation of the land acquired by Forest Enterprise Scotland at Nether Horsburgh. The agreement to purchase the land was concluded the best part of a decade ago, but consultation with national and regional authorities was only the first hurdle to be cleared. A public consultation with local interested parties – the residents of the new village of Cardrona, golf course and hotel owners, and those who rented out the waters of the River Tweed to salmon anglers – was a long, drawn-out process.
Forester Stewart Mackie explained that the new forest has now been established at Nether Horsburgh, but the work had been executed by a private forestry concern and hand-over of the established planting scheme, subject to goals being achieved, would be accepted by FLS after five years. Stewart was able to answer questions about the investment FES/FLS had contributed to the scheme in terms of deer fencing and access roading, but was unable to elaborate on other costs as they were subject to the ‘commercial confidentiality’ of the private forestry company concerned.
“You will be able to ask me anything you like when we get down the road to the plantings we have put in – herbicides, costs, failure rates – and anything you want to mention,” added Stewart. Before moving on, he handed over to Matt Parratt of Forest Research who had been invited to introduce the visitors to the alternative-species trial site below the new Glentress Haul Route. Trial sites had been set up across Great Britain; one in Wales, another at Westonbirt in Gloucestershire, a third at Bramshill in the Home Counties, as well as one in the Hebrides in Mull. The fifth was in Glentress, with 14 species represented.
Matt quickly ran through a few of the most significant findings of the Glentress trial. Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) of different provenance had shown remarkably varied survival rates. Plants from Polish sources had established very successfully, while those from Spain had suffered considerable losses. Maritime pine (P. pinaster) and Monterrey pine (P. radiata) had suffered from pine shoot moth attack. One provenance of the latter species, obtained from New Zealand, was being watched with great interest. It was reputed to be resistant to red band needle blight (Dothistroma septosporum). The growth of seedlings in the Atlas cedar plots (Cedrus atlantica) had been encouraging.
Some present expressed doubt as to the usefulness of such trials. One visitor was handed the microphone to respond in defence of Sitka spruce and its pre-eminent position in the forestry industries of the British Isles. Another pointed out that, if climate change was the driver for such trials, foresters should study the huge range of climatic conditions with which Sitka spruce copes so well within its naturally occurring ranges.
The criticism was taken with good humour. After all, Matt Parrat had been given the opportunity to address a well-attended gathering of some of the best qualified and most experienced foresters in Scotland. Results of the trials, according to Matt, would be published by Forest Research in the coming months and all those present would be able to peruse the documents and form a balanced judgement.
BROADLEAF PLANTING
The last stop on the itinerary was Stewart Mackie’s productive broadleaved planting scheme. The nest planting system for producing valuable hardwoods was pioneered in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Following WWII, Josef Stalin had ambitions to reforest around 6 million ha of the Southern Russian steppes with oak forest – some commentators even claim his objective was to combat man-induced climate change. The Polish forest researcher Szymanski established the first trials outside the Soviet Union in 1952 and, at the same time, Professor Mark Anderson was developing similar planting systems in Great Britain.
The Glentress planting scheme differs little from the silvicutural establishment systems developed over a century ago in pre-Soviet Russia. Each nest of 25 densely packed oak seedlings has been surrounded by 16 hornbeams. The heavy shade of the trainers (as the latter are often known) is thought to improve the stem form and vigour of the surrounded oak saplings. Nests have been established at the rate of 100 per ha, the space between filled with a matrix of sycamore and Norway maple at 1.5 m spacing.
The 20 ha site was heavily grazed until April and then treated with glyphosate to reduce competing vegetation to a minimum. Cell-grown seedlings were planted out straight from the cold store as soon as the herbicide application was seen to be successful.
Stewart Mackie conceded that weed growth had been surprisingly strong and consideration was being given to further herbicide applications to ensure the new timber crop was able to thrive. Such action had not been required on the small trial plot that had been established the previous year.
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