A morning visit to Richard Davidson’s recently established woodland a few miles east of Moffat provided much stimulation for delegates later to attend a conference at the Scottish Rural College’s Barony campus. The impressions left by the extensive tour of the rapidly developing woodland appeared to invigorate and focus many minds in the afternoon session.
THE day was organised by SEDA – the Scottish Ecological Design Association – with the collaboration of the James Hutton Institute and the Scottish Rural College (SRUC). SEDA evolved as an architect-led movement in the 1990s with the aim of promoting environmentally friendly, sustainable, low-impact design solutions. Three decades on, those watch-words carry a lot more weight. Not only do they now garner interest from a far wider professional base, but they can also attract funding from agencies and even governments.
Thus it was that the organisers had gathered together a wide range of professionals to bounce ideas to their colleagues and stimulate debate under the heading of ‘Which Trees for Homes?’. Salient points emerging would be moved forward to higher powers and it was possible they would have some bearing on future national policy proposals. No less important, the format brought together players from across the spectrum to air their points of view. Those charged with promoting social housing provision were interacting with timber-built housing providers. Timber technology scientists were speaking with those who grow the timber and those who fashion it for use. Farming representatives were given the chance to question those who, in their own fraternity, are increasing the tree cover on their holdings.
On the big matters, such as climate change, there is a lot of agreement. Being made aware of the constraints that your fellows in the land-based sector have to deal with is essential for bringing the supply chain together. The morning session out on the hill brought together delegates from widely differing disciplines – nobody was a stranger when the discussions began in the afternoon at Barony College.
The ‘hill’ in question was Richard Davidson’s Crofthead Forest, a few miles east of Moffat. Richard has been a forestry owner since 2004 and brought Crofthead into his portfolio in 2017. The opportunity arose to establish new woodlands on the lower ground of the holding. He explained that, while Crofthead will remain a commercial forest and indeed was awarded Scotland’s Finest Woods award for best new commercial woodland in 2023, it would fulfil multiple objectives spanning both timber and biodiversity
Sitka spruce, he accepted, was a fantastic tree for timber production, but he was not in the business of covering the hills with a monoculture when the conditions are so suitable for a range of species. The new woodland at Crofthead should be a pleasant place to be while the timber crops mature.
The opportunity would also be taken to allow less commonly planted coniferous timber producers to prove their worth – 60 years hence, the softwood sawmillers may have moved away from concentrating their purchasing power on medium-sized spruce logs. In the light of current worries about climate change, varying the species and mixtures they grow in goes some way to limiting the risk on the investment.
Richard admitted that he and his forester, Andrew Macqueen, had a meeting of minds when they first considered the woodland creation. The variable soil quality allowed for an adventurous planting matrix to be implemented. One of the more novel ideas was to establish Sitka spruce with aspen in suitable parts.
As it happens, 31 per cent of the new woodland is composed of Sitka spruce – some of it in mixture with other species. Areas of mixed broadleaves and mixed conifers occupy slightly lessening proportions of the woodland cover respectively and the remaining 16 per cent of the area has been designed as open ground. Early maturing species such as Sitka spruce will create intermediate income to provide funds for the more intervention heavy, slow maturing crops such as the oak.
Andrew, formerly of Tilhill, and now operating as Andrew Macqueen Silviculture, reiterated to attendees that in his and Richard’s view, the quality of ground they had acquired was worthy of innovative investment. Maintenance had sought to minimise chemical usage, with the first plot visited – closely planted oak with nurses having only been hand weeded over the first few seasons to get it established.
Vole guards were needed to protect the young trees from rodent damage. Further protection was afforded by deer fencing in some areas, but in Andrew’s view professional deer control was money better spent. Crofthead culls around 30 animals a year and, fortunately, neighbouring estates were all fully active in restricting deer populations to acceptable numbers.
Although at a fairly low altitude, late frosts were suspected to have been the cause of damage to some of the oaks’ fresh leaders. On his regular inspections, Andrew has already started to prune affected oak to reduce, as far as possible, defects of stem form. Such damage seems far less common in those parts where the bracken has returned since establishment and is now forming mats of dead fronds under the oaks. The slow release of extra warmth held in the ground probably buffers the sharp drop in temperature on clear spring nights.
The next block was mixed conifer with a lesser proportion of mixed broadleaves. Predominately Douglas fir, there were also three silver firs – Noble fir (Abies procera), its similar American cousin, the Pacific silver fir (Abies amabilis) and the European silver fir (Abies alba). The latter had been planted in a matrix of beech. Richard wondered whether, many years in the future, a small part of this valley would resemble the slopes of Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, which still retain at least half a dozen genetically distinct old-growth silver fir/beech forest reserves.
Not currently top of the shopping list for the buyers of the mainstream sawmills, the likes of western red cedar (Thuja plicata) and Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) have been included in the planting programme. The suggestion was made that the small sawmillers of the future may be able to maximise value by making full use of the timber characteristics of the less saleable species. Wellingtonia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) have also been planted, although the latter had proved quite frost sensitive.
It will be interesting to see how the tamaracks (Larix laricina) fare. Also known as American or Eastern larch, the species is found from the Canadian tundra down to the Great Lakes. Although some reports suggest its timber is little used nowadays, in the past it had a very good reputation for the durability, lightness and strength of beams, boards and fencing material, and it is coming back into fashion for cladding. In contrast, the qualities of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) timber are well known and it is readily saleable. Three provenances of the species (English, Scottish and French) have been trialled at Crofthead and early results are impressive: annual height gains of around 2 m have been registered over the last couple of years.
Visitors did not leave before experiencing a cultural aspect to the woodland. Fiddler Iain Fraser (Jedburgh) and poet Stuart Paterson (Ayrshire) plied their artistic skills under a birch tree and within a young oak plantation. Nobody should have been under any illusion this was an entertainment interlude. Iain and Stuart will be including their compositions in praise of timber production and forestry to audiences as they perform at venues throughout Scotland.
The afternoon session at Barony College opened to the sound of Iain’s fiddle playing an air composed for the conference titled ‘The Sycamore’. While Barony’s David McCracken managed the sound systems and the complexities of video conferencing, David Millar of the James Hutton Institute introduced the ‘Provocations’.
A number of attendees had been chosen to put forward a vision of an aspect of their speciality subject, with a view to eliciting responses from the wide range of professionals in the room. Isabel Conway of South of Scotland Enterprise led by echoing the conference title ‘Which Trees for Homes?’. She pointed out there was a considerable area of land available for housing, although the construction plans of local authorities were limited at the moment to a modest 9,000 new homes in the next 10 years. Isabel was interested in the potential for local material – specifically timber – to be used in housing construction.
Rob McKenna, sawmill manager for James Jones at Lockerbie, responded by expressing his support for this idea. However, a jump into the construction sector in a market dominated by imports was not as simple as it appeared. Over the course of a few interventions throughout the afternoon – notably from Dumfries sawmiller Archie McConnel and Morayshire architect and builder Neil Sutherland – those present would come to appreciate a wider perspective of the constraints.
Archie was keen to point out that he was prepared to mill rougher timber than the large-scale sawmillers would accept, and large sawn profiles gave the structures he designed and built their strength. Wasting trees because they were imperfect was not the business he was in. He was interested to know how much waste the sawmill at Lockerbie produced. Rob McKenna responded that it produced none: the main product was sawn timber but maximising the value of non-sawn timber products was a priority. Top-quality raw material was essential for the efficiency of the milling systems required to supply competitively priced products.
Neil Sutherland of Makar asked why the large British sawmillers were reluctant to invest in systems to supply C24 stress-graded softwood. In Rob’s view, it was unfortunate that so many designers were now defaulting to C24 – which must be imported – when home-grown C16 is more than adequate in terms of strength for almost all construction applications. Online, timber scientist Dan Ridley-Ellis, Edinburgh Napier University, concurred, noting that often it was visual rather than strength attributes that relegated softwoods to C16.
There are, of course, architects and designers who would prefer to use home-grown timber in their designs. Rob feels the British forestry industry is best advised to persuade them to accept C16 for construction purposes. Were UK sawmills to start dividing their output between the grades, home-grown C24 would no doubt be very much in demand. It could, however, serve to diminish further the reputation of perfectly serviceable C16.
Andrew Barbour, from Perthshire, appeared by videolink. He outlined the ‘agroforestry’ work he was doing at Mains of Fincastle and noted the system was becoming popular in England. Steering the conversation back to the topic, he pointed out that the Scandinavians have three dominant timber-producing species – Scots pine, Norway spruce and birch. In rural parts all three are used extensively in building projects. He also used the term ‘regenerative farming’.
Doug Howieson, Scottish Forestry, preferred the term ‘trees on farms’, as the alternatives meant different things to different people. Stewart Wyllie, Scottish National Union of Farmers, wanted a definition of the term ‘regenerative’ as, in his opinion, it was not as straightforward as it appeared. The afternoon may seem to have been edged away to a discussion on technical names (lexical semantics is the official term), but people were opening up and talking. Needless to say, the conference could not come to an agreement on which of the terms should be used.
Doug was, however, to make an important intervention, highlighting how Scottish Forestry works. Government grants had not been available for all the planting on the Crofthead site. It was a matter of ‘box ticking’ and despite the merits of the afforestation plan, funds could not be diverted from applicants who met all the criteria establishing Sitka spruce on poorer-quality upland sites.
Stewart Wyllie also appeared to be somewhat critical of the Crofthead project; as he was of Andrew Barbour’s efforts at Mains of Fincastle. He proposed the argument that a forest should be planted to maximise timber production and a farmer should maximise the agricultural yield from his land; one-hundred per cent! Whether Stewart was playing ‘devil’s advocate’ was unclear. There is some merit, at least, in the reasoning that such a course of action may reduce the carbon footprint of the operations.
Earlier David Millar had asked delegates to remind themselves of the James Hutton Institute’s Glensaugh project. The pioneering integrated farming and forestry experiment had seen much interest at first but did not kick-start the agroforestry revolution. He hoped that events like the one at Barony would – given the heightened awareness today of climate issues.
Evergreen Peter Wilson, Mass Timber Academy, presented the last ‘provocation’ of the day. Peter has been advocating the potential of laminated timber construction systems, such as glulam, for many years. He had information about some new projects, such as an impressive timber pedestrian bridge in Stirlingshire. A little more surprising is the rumour that laminated wood may be arriving in Scotland shortly to form towers for wind turbines up to 150 m tall.
The event closed with a recital of Ayrshire poet Stuart Paterson’s commissioned poem ‘Regrowth’ – a work that linked the future of timber and woodlands in Scotland with the traditions of the past, as evidenced in evocative place names such as Kinnelhall Hazelbank and Marchbankwood Oakriggside
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