Growth factors...

[Kentish Man]

But if you _planted_ it on the poor soil with good light, would it far better than the one in richer soil but poorer light?

[jillybean]

I think so. for when one cuts overgrown coppice, the following year one sees amazing regrowth, compare it with the adjacent uncut coppice that struggles in the dark. I believe it is the leaves that absorb sunlight and make sugar for the plant to use, the roots are there for water more than minerals. the richer soil is important for house plants, but not for rufty tufty "Ive been standing in this spot for 300 years and no ones ever fed me and i dont care" Trees

[Dennis]

Definitely light. Tracy and Mike have been coppicing Sweep Wood this season, and some sycamore stems they've cut had reached - I think - around 10 inches diameter in 16 years. The largest diameters had the best locations for light.

[DaveTaz]

"most woodland is on poor soil, good soils were used for arable"

before farming came along everywhere was covered in some kind of tree cover, woodland makes its own fertile soil.

Sweet chestnut will struggle in poor light but would probably die completely if the soil had no air, water or nutrients in it in trhe right combination

Only my opinion any way

[lesthetreenut]

This seems a facile thread as you grow what you can, which you find out by looking around and comparing soils and also noticing the primary cover in other coppice of say 12 to 25 trees of whatever type an acre. One to a few of these should be left to age and provide habitat and shade, not taken for timber, whilst all should be scalloped with bushes and so on to prevent wind or whirlwind entry likely to lay down trees like a corn circle. The trees and bushes can provide fruit, sap in the case of birch for wine or syrup and other things. However, it is not a facile at all as it goes to show how much there is to learn and not least, for example, testing to see of you should be able to grow a specific species to meet a market you identify by soil analysis at least for acid/alkali and minerals.

Sycamore is an invasive foreign species producing some 500 saplings a year that prevent native species coming through. It is a good timber when grown for that but not the best or most valuable and is generally weeded and cut and burnt to keep it down as it grows like a weed.

Tree roots connect underground in synapses like a brain and grow better for the company. This relationship is interfered with by fungal mycellae. These threads supply the trees with nutrients and, when they stop taking it, invade what they now hope is a dead tree. Trees grow better in soil that suits them anyway if old woodland as the soil layers contain these different fungi. You see the fruiting bodies of the fungi on stumps, etc. as mushrooms or toadstools. Woodland does not grow so well on shallow soil, soil put there using say spent mushroom compost, or of course where the area is polluted. However, something can be grown to some density and the soil inproves with the leaf mould which in other areas, incidentally, is a crop in itself.

lesthetreenut