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buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

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buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby smojo » Mon Feb 24, 2014 8:54 am

Been looking at some woodlands for sale and wondered if it would be a bad prospect to buy one with a lot ash trees on the basis of possible future die-back disease. Would you be buying a potential nightmare? What happens if your wood gets infected? I'm guessing by law you have to destroy it. Does that mean it has to be burnt in situ and therefore you couldn't even sell or use it yourself for firewood at home and what about the costs of felling, do you have to bear that cost? Are there any compensation schemes if you do have to destroy your trees? Ta
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby Dexter's Shed » Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:19 am

I'm sure someone with more knowledge will reply soon, but I'm sure I read somewhere that you could get it written into the contract, that if the ash got the disease a refund of some percentage would be given back/for new trees
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby oldclaypaws » Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:26 am

From last years rather hysterical news headlines, you'd think that every ash tree is dying and you musn't walk within 5 miles of one or you risk certain death. The truth is rather less dramatic.

Although the disease is now reported across most regions, its still mainly been restricted to new sites where imported ash trees were recently planted. It has spread to older native woods in places, but the number of sites is still comparatively small compared to the frequency of ash trees. Spread is slow and insidious, probably unpreventable, but it might take decades before the majority of ash trees are threatened. Vigilance is required, but there's no need for panic. Young trees are the most affected, veteran Ash trees of 40 years+ old tend to survive and some may hold the key to resistant strains.

You'd probably find it difficult to buy a wood without any Ash, its one of our most successful and widespread trees. Most older woods will have a mix of native trees where Ash will only form a minority of the total cover. It is a beautiful, graceful and useful tree, so we will all be upset if losing it, but so far no SWOG members have reported being affected.

I'd probably think twice before buying a wood that is dominated by Ash, but few such woods will exist, unless they were recently planted for fuel. If you did find one with a fair bit of Ash, its a good bargaining point to talk the price down and you could start a long term 'bet hedging' agenda of thinning the Ash and planting other natives to increase the species mix. Yes, currently an infected wood will mean you'd have to destroy it on site at your own cost, but you'd be unlucky and its far from certain in the next few years that you'd be hit. Most of us fell our own smaller trees, older Ash trees might be left to see if they can pull through, that would be for discussion with the FC if unfortunate to be infected.

If you rejected any wood with a potential to catch disease, you'd have to exclude woods containing Larch, Oak, Chestnut, Sweet Chestnut, Ash, Elm, Plane- basically all woods.

There any many threats facing woods, but its part of nature. If one species takes a knock, others fill the gaps. Theres already talk of using the likes of Sycamore, Maples, and other more resistant Ash species as a long term replacement for Common Ash. Its a reprieve for Sycamore, which only a few years ago was considered non-native and invasive by some, now its seen as a possible 'saviour' or alternative to Ash. The balance changes.

Don't be scared of Ash, it'll be around for a good while yet, but a well mixed wood will always be less prone to particular forthcoming challenges. Its for that reason we're thinning our dominant species and replanting a bigger mix, and its not Ash !! - And we still have plenty of Elm, that wasn't wiped out either.
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby smojo » Mon Feb 24, 2014 12:09 pm

Thanks for the input. I have seen one advertised that seems to be a very high ratio of ash maybe 30% or more but the price is quite reasonable working out about £7,500/acre. I'm guessing that maybe that's why it's cheaper than most of the others with more diversity of species. Also as it's part of a bigger wood, I'm wondering if the owners are playing it canny and deciding to sell before die back becomes a real problem. It looks as though it's a youngish wood too with semi mature trees, I'm guessing planted 50-80 years ago. This wood has some good features, good access and security and low price but my gut feeling is because of the high proportion of ash, best to avoid. I would also prefer a woodland with more diversity.
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby TerryH » Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:45 pm

oldclaypaws wrote:Most of us fell our own smaller trees,


Hmm, just wondering...do you mean that most people fell the smaller trees specifically to reduce the risk of getting the dieback disease in their wood? Or is it just good practice to do so anyway because ash coppices so well and the saplings grow so readily ( and therefore presumably it is a good source of firewood that can be cut, when young, without needing to worry about quotas or felling licences) ?

We have 15% mature ash in our small wood (about 100 of them) but also a further 100 or so very young ash trees which probably seeded from just one or two of the mature ones. Perhaps I should think about controlling them for either, or both, of the above reasons.....
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby oldclaypaws » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:08 pm

Most of us fell our own smaller trees


Grammatical misunderstanding. I was referring to the felling of small trees of all species, not specifically Ash, meaning that in the event of succumbing to Chalara, most of us wouldn't need to pay a contractor to fell, just follow FC instructions and do most of it ourselves without any significant cost. I've 100 or so medium Ash trees and reckon I could clear them in a week. Several of them are old coppiced stools on the banks which must be a century old or more, I'd be very sorry to lose those.

On the other hand, I've maybe 20,000 Ash seedlings about a foot high, waiting for a gap in the trees to thrust up to the light. If I had to clear those, it would take quite a while !!
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby SitkaSpruce » Tue Feb 25, 2014 6:12 pm

I don't think I would be put off completely by a wood with 30% ash but it is a consideration that you need to weigh up. What are the other 70% of trees? Do you like the wood otherwise? No one knows what's going to happen yet with ash. You may have resistant ones, or may have a lot of firewood but that's in the future. Most of my trees are larch but the european ones and I'm in a low risk area for ramorum but it's something I've thought about. I view it as an potential opportunity- at some point they will need felling anyway for timber. I would be viewing ash the same way. Oddly I only have one ash sapling- even though there's lots along the roadside verge.
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby smojo » Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:55 am

SitkaSpruce wrote:I don't think I would be put off completely by a wood with 30% ash but it is a consideration that you need to weigh up. What are the other 70% of trees? Do you like the wood otherwise? No one knows what's going to happen yet with ash. You may have resistant ones, or may have a lot of firewood but that's in the future. Most of my trees are larch but the european ones and I'm in a low risk area for ramorum but it's something I've thought about. I view it as an potential opportunity- at some point they will need felling anyway for timber. I would be viewing ash the same way. Oddly I only have one ash sapling- even though there's lots along the roadside verge.


Thanks for your advice. I haven't visited the wood and am estimating the % but there are beech and larch (I think). I quite like the wood in many ways but I'm hesitant over the location as it's about an hour and a half drive away. I think that would become a bind as I'd probably want to go every week so expensive on fuel too.
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby oldclaypaws » Wed Feb 26, 2014 11:36 am

I'd be more put off by the distance than the Ash. If you can find a wood within say 15 or 20 miles, I reckon you'll end up going several times a week.

I commute 43.4 miles to my wood every week- that's 3.1 miles there and back every day times 7 times a week. Whatever the other attractions of it, the good fortune to find a wonderful wood on our doorstep has made it a daily part of our lives, and its amazing how it slightly changes day by day. If I'm not putting my boots on by early afternoon, I get filthy looks and picketed by the dogs- they've got me well trained.

If worried about Ash, start to thin it and gradually allow other species to have more room, that way you have an immediate source of good fuel, more eventual diversity and less issues from the potential Chalara threat.
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Re: buying a woodland containing a lot of ash trees

Postby smojo » Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:05 pm

Yes I'm beginning to think it needs to be no more than an hour but preferably much less.
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