Question about options of hill land

Dodont

Hello all
I about to inherit 130 acres of hill land and wondering what can I do with it?
I was looking into forestry, there's a scheme of planting willow but when I contacted the department about it, they told me there's a new scheme in a few months and they'll give me the contacts of said scheme when they can.
I've been told that years ago the previous owners of the land looked into planting trees, and was told there wouldn't be a problem in doing so.
They changed their mind, and a few years later decided to go ahead with it again, only to be told they probably wouldn't get permitted to plant. The standard of land to plant rose between the time periods. The land is a bit wet and mossy, but it would be easy to work with.
The land is surrounded by forestry.
So my question is, if I drain the land, plough it up etc, would it then qualify? Would it be worth the effort? It's good flat land so wouldn't be relatively difficult.
If not forestry, is there any other scheme etc that I could look into?
If you had the land, what would you do with it?
I have full entitlements etc
Thanks for reading

sako 85

We planted 4 acres of forestry this year, my advice to you would be to contact one of the forestry companys, Greenbelt done ours. They will advise you and will put any application together for you. Why bother doing any work until you know if approval will be granted or not.

thomur

I inherited 40 acres in 1992 of hill land in Clare. I planted 32 with sitkas. It has given me an income for the first 20 years. Im glad I didn't plant it all as I've built a house on the remaining 8. if you decide to plant Id check out insurance. I didn't and got his pretty badly in the storms. Still got paid for the wood but not as much as if it went full term. It also looks quite patchy now