Fast growing willow for firewood

Hi Smeeee, nice blog.... as can be seen from this thread I am doing exactly the same and am about 4-5 years ahead of you.
My first batch of 500 should be ready for harvesting but I think I am going to leave them longer. I have no interest in chippings but would like mini logs.
I think I will change from having 4x500 in rotation every 4 years to a 6 or 7 years rotation with less (but thicker) each time. This doesn't bother me as my wood burner is not the main heat source or hooked up to the central heating.

Well, after 1 year I did what I call copparding.... not quite coppicing or pollarding.... I cut them all down to about 90 cm high. So the first batch have had 4 years since then..... they all grew between 4-8 stems. In order to plant my last set of 500 I thinned down this first set of 500 to 4-5 stems each, in an effort to have thicker stems, rather than just a thick trunk and many thin rods.

TBH I thought it would all be a lot thicker. I have some trunks below 90cm that are probably 10cm in diameter but not all. Some of the stems coming from them are thick enough to be considered mini logs, but with the height if the willow it's obvious that I will have many lengths that I will just chop up into kindling wood, or use as rods for fencing or something!

So at the moment I would say I could coppice them, and have the trunk about 90-100cm for about 90cm length and then 4-5 stems of varying thicknesses.

The first 500 I planted were a hybrid variety from Bow Hayes trees (https://www.bowhayestrees.co.uk/trees-hedges/trees-by-range/hybrid-willow) and grew very fast. Sets 2,3,4 were a 5 species mix from Mammoth (https://mammothwillow.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=24&products_id=73&zenid=up50fno88skou8tc9bb9at1391) not sure if mine are the same as listed here. They have not been as fast but I'm not sure if it's the cold spring/summers we have had or the species. They are getting there though.

Of the 2000 I have planted only a bare handful didn't take. I strimmed a few dozen by accident but who's counting....

I am not sure if I should pollard for a few iterations and end up with massive trunks I can then coppice for proper logs... and let the process restart. Like you I am 'copparding' at 90cms to 100cms in order to make manual harvesting easier.

ted1 wrote: »

Just out of interest are you drying them out and if so how ?

Yes I plan to dry them as follows. Cut them in October/November and dry outside in full lengths (stacked to allow airflow through the pile), then in March/April I'll cut them to size and store under cover (log shed with gaps in walls and floor) for the summer. That system works well with all my other wood types (pine, fir, hazel, sycamore, ash, holly etc.).

Some people say willow takes a little longer to dry out, so will have to see how it goes.

I took a few photos yesterday to show the progress of my oldest set.