I remember my finger hovering over the send button to contact Dan Watson from woodlands.co.uk after seeing two woodlands for sale. One had a majestic old tree, the other a beautiful stream running through it.   Dan contacted me to give me directions so I could initially view the woods alone.

The directions were clear and despite a little ‘off roading’, my two spaniels and I found the woods and spent a couple of hours wandering around them.   It was January 2023 and despite the woodlands being very dormant, the quiet, still beauty of the woods opened my lungs and for the first time in a long time I felt I was breathing with ease. A calm swept over me.

My orientating skills failed me and I never found the tree in the  photo. I arranged a second viewing with Dan a week later. This was beneficial as Dan was full of information on the trees, plants and wildlife, and a little history on the area. The tree was more stunning than the photo. My dilemma now was which wood to buy as together they would make 9 acres of stunning woodland.  Taking the plunge to buy both was both scary and exhilarating. I may finally get to preserve a little bit of this beautiful world we seem so driven to destroy.

The woodlands website was brilliant and pointed me in the direction of  a local conveyancing solicitor.  The process was unbelievably swift and smooth. A couple of telephone conversations and relevant paperwork sent, signed and returned through the post  - five weeks later I owned what is now Lackenby Dell.  

Dan phoned to congratulate me and said the key to the gates would be posted. Within days that ‘nugget of gold’ arrived and so my woodland adventures begin.

]]> https://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/flora-and-fauna/ancient-and-veteran-trees/ Thu, 16 Mar 2023 11:07:22 +0000 http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-activities/ancient-and-veteran-trees/

The terms veteran tree or ancient tree are often used. But what is a veteran?

A veteran tree may be defined by a combination of factors:

• its age
• its size;
• its condition;
• its history;
• its position.

Age or size by itself does not define a veteran. These factors have to be viewed in relation to 'typical' values for any given species of tree. A one hundred year old birch or willow might count as a veteran, but a one hundred year old oak or yew would be an adolescent.   A tree should show some of the following features to be termed a veteran:

• the trunk should be large (for the species);
• decay holes present in parts of the trunk;
• the trunk may show signs of damage and/or bark loss;
• the canopy has some dead wood;
• fruiting bodies of fungi often present (from heart rot fungi);
• mosses and lichens are present (epiphytes);
• a rich variety of wildlife is present on/in the tree;
• the shape or position of the tree is of interest;
• the tree may have cultural or historical interest, perhaps it was used as the gallows!

The Birnam Oak - with support

Some veterans have achieved their status through their management, for example, pollarding or coppicing. One example of ancient pollarding is the Birnam Oak.  Others achieve veteran status through their position and significance - for example, yew trees in churchyards.

The Birnam sycamore, not as old as the Oak but still some 300 years young!

Why are these trees important to us? Well, there are a number of reasons:

• They may be the closest descendants of the trees that formed the landscape and forests after the last ice age and represent a gene pool that could be tapped (for example, for disease resistance).
• Analysis of their growth rings can gives us information about past (local) climatic patterns.
• They provide habitats for many different species of invertebrates and fungi.
• They can provide information or evidence of former patterns of land use or management. For example, pollarded willows may chart the path of a former river (that has now run dry).

But veterans / ancient trees are often threatened. They may be felled for timber or for safety reasons (heart rot fungi etc) or simply to tidy up woodland. The management of adjacent land may pose a threat through ploughing and use of various agricultural sprays.  Sometimes, disease strikes (as in the case of Dutch Elm Disease) or damage to the bark (by people or livestock) may allow pathogens to enter. Many older trees were lost in the great storm of 1987 (and 1990).

In recent times, the UK Biodiversity Action plan has recognised the importance of these mature and interesting trees and their role in managed woodlands, hedgerows and the countryside in general.

Epiphytes (lots of moss) at the base and on the branches.

The olive tree [Olea europaea] , is an evergreen tree native to the mediterranean area.  Indeed, it is often cited as an ‘indicator plant’ for the area. It is of major agricultural importance throughout the mediterranean basin as it is the source of olive oil. 

Generally, the outline of the tree is somewhat short and squat^†, its height varies between 8 –15 M. The oblong/spear-shaped leaves are silvery green; the upper surface is green, whereas the lower surface is more silvery. The leaves measure between 4–10 cm in length and are between 1–3 cm in width. Olive trees can be very long lived and, as the tree ages, the trunk frequently becomes gnarled and twisted.  The tree produces small, white, ‘feathery’ flowers on the previous year's growth.

The olive fruit is a small stone fruit , i.e. a drupe between 1–2.5 cm long.  The fruit is smaller in wild plants than in the cultivars seen in the olive groves. Many other fruits (the almond, apricot, cherry, damson, nectarine, and plum) are also drupes.   

Olives are harvested when green or purple and then are pressed or ground up to extract the oil.  The oil has many uses - apart from the culinary.  For example, it is used in lamps in religious ceremonies, in skin care / cosmetic products, and as a lubricant. 

The cultivation of the olive dates back many thousands of years.  As far back as 3000 BC, olives were grown commercially in Crete where, some have suggested, they might have been the source of the wealth of the Minoan Civilisation.   Olive oil has been traded throughout the Mediterranean throughout historic times.  Wreaths of olive branches was used in the burial of Tutankhamen.

Interestingly, these funereal wreathes have been used in studies to investigate the effect of increasing carbon dioxide on stomatal density.  Stomates are pores involved in gas exchange (the uptake of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis).  They also help regulate water loss via transpiration.  Stomatal pores are surrounded by guard cells (see image of a stomate) that change their shape, allowing the pore to open or close as required for the uptake of carbon dioxide. 

Some of the Tutankhamen wreathes, [which date from 1327 BC] are held by Kew Gardens, and were used by researchers (Beerling and Chaloner*) to compare the number of stomates on the undersides of the leaves with more modern olives (and some herbarium specimens from the nineteenth century).

The number of stomates (per unit leaf area) on the more modern olive leaves is approximately 530 stomates per mm² .This is significantly lower than the average density on the ancient Egyptian (or indeed nineteenth century) olive leaves of 790 stomates per mm² in 1372 BC. This is in line with studies in controlled environments which showed that as CO₂ levels increase so stomatal density falls.  As of January this year, the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere is 413.4 ppm (as measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii ). The last two centuries have seen the extensive extraction and burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal & gas). Prior to this, in pre-industrial times, the level of carbon dioxide was circa 280 ppm, as estimated during the ‘Middle Ages’.   

*Beerling and Chaloner, Annals of Botany, vol 71, p431-435.

 † An exception to this general form is the variety / cultivar ‘Pisciottana', found in the Campania region of southern Italy. 

Methane might be a clean fossil fuel when in a pipeline but it is second only to carbon dioxide in terms of contributing to global warming, when present in the atmosphere.  Over the last two centuries, the level of methane in the atmosphere has increased dramatically (and now stands at approximately 1800 parts per billion). Much of this increase has been linked to certain agricultural practices (farming of cattle and other ruminants, paddy fields) plus the emissions from decomposing landfill etc. 

However, recent work in a number of forested and woodland areas (for example, The Amazon, Borneo, China, Hungary etc) has suggested that the release of methane by trees is significant, and given that methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas - this has to be considered in relation to climate change.  The methane contribution from  trees has not really been considered when working out the global methane budget but it now seems that they make a contribution.  

The methane emission by a single tree might be small but world-wide there are billions of trees.  A paper published in The New Phytologist entitled “Methane production and emissions in trees and forests” by Kristofer R. Covey & J. Patrick Megonigal addresses this issue.  It had been thought that the action of soil microbes (methanotrophs) particularly in upland woodlands and forests in removing methane from the air would offset some methane production but this may not be the case.   Covey has also described situations where similar trees in similar soils have a fifty-fold difference in methane emissions; the situation is variable!

In the past measurements of methane flux were frequently done at soil level.  However, it is now known that methane can be released from various surfaces of a tree. Professor Vincent Gauci of the Open University has been working on methane release in woodlands /  forests. He and other scientists have found trees produce their own methane (and are not just acting as a conduit for the release of methane from the soil).  Methane can come from microbes in the heartwood of the trunk and / or other tissues.   But recent work has shown that a photochemical reaction, probably driven by the U.V wavelengths in sunlight is capable of producing methane.  This production of methane by trees is known as abiotic aerobic methanogenesis.  It may be that it involves reactive oxygen species (such as peroxide or superoxide) inter-acting with pectin, lignin or other complex polymers.  This production of methane has been associated with various stressors - such as the wounding of tissue, high temperature, drought and infection.

The methane emissions from trees measured in some regions are seemingly enormous. A Lancaster University team estimated that the trees in seasonally flooded forests of the Amazon produced between 14 and 25 million metric tons of methane annually—an amount not dis-similar to methane release from the Arctic tundra.  This is perhaps not surprising given the wet, water- logged nature of the soils; ideal for many methane-generating bacteria. Other studies have found trees generating substantial amounts of methane even in dry upland ecosystems.  

Interestingly some of this work was on cottonwoods and it takes us ‘full circle’.  Over a hundred years ago, a chemistry professor (Francis Bushong) in Kansas reported an observation that he had made; he noted that when he had cut down some cottontrees that the sap that exuded from the trunks ’bubbled’ and that he could ignite these bubbles.  The bubbles produce a blue flame on ignition.  Back at his laboratory, he discovered that the bubbles contained methane and in some cases the methane reached  65% or more of the total stem gas*. Rather like Gregor Mendel’s work on the genetics of peas, his observations lapsed into relative obscurity for some years.

* Bushong FW. 1907. Composition of gas from cottonwood trees. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 21: 53

With the changing nature of our climate, so extreme events have become more frequent.  The last fifteen or so years has seen significant episodes of flooding.  Flooding used to be a relatively unusual event in the U.K.   In consequence,  efforts are now being directed at finding ways of mitigating the effects of extreme rainfall.

The risk of flooding is associated with changes in our climate (notably rainfall patterns) and the techniques of land management have changed with the mechanisation of agriculture,  the creation of simplified (larger) field systems, land drainage, increased stock densities etc.  The U.K. landscape / countryside has altered significantly over the last fifty years.  In consequence of these various changes, (e.g. increased stock densities which contributes to soil compaction) - water infiltration (penetration of water into the soil) has decreased, and water run-off has increased.    The loss of hedgerows and trees, and reduced surface vegetation has affected the interception of rainfall, and the loss of deeper root systems etc. means that effects of soil compaction can be more marked.   All of these changes can affect the rate at which water enters streams and river systems so that water is delivered faster to water courses from fields and agricultural land.

Though woodland coverage in the UK has been slowly increasing in recent decades, the percentage cover still remains one of the lowest in Europe.   The presence of woodland and hedgerow can significantly lower the peak flow of water - partly through evaporative loss / transpiration through canopy interception but also because of the increased water storage capacity of soil under trees, and the better water infiltration / retention by the soil.  The 'geometry' of tree planting can also influence the water penetration into the soil, clumps of trees seem to have a greater effect than single, regularly spaced trees.  Also, influential is the presence (or rather absence) of animals, such as sheep; they can cause soil compaction around the trees as they seek shelter and / or shade.  A (hybrid) grass species, Festulolium, that has an extensive root system (developed at Rothamsted and Aberystwyth University) has been found to be effective in reducing water run off (from agricultural grassland) by allowing more water to drain into the soil.  This grass also provides high quality forage and it is resilient to extremes of weather, making the  grass doubly useful to farmers

The restoration of hedgerows and the introduction of limited wooded areas to agricultural lands not only has benefits in terms of the mitigation of flooding (in a matter of a few years), it also helps promote biodiversity in agricultural systems.

]]> https://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-economics/counting-the-trees/ https://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-economics/counting-the-trees/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2015 09:39:40 +0000 http://www.woodlands.co.uk/?p=23573

How many trees are there in the world?  Four hundred billion was the figure often quoted; that is, until this month when a report in Nature has come up with a figure slightly in excess of three trillion.   This approximates to 420 trees for each person on the plant.

How was this figures arrived at ?  Well, the team (an impressive array of scientists from Universities and research institutions all over the world) amassed data from national forest inventories, plus peer reviewed studies where forests and woodlands had been studied in detail; this information was then used to inform what was also being seen on satellite imagery. For the purposes of the study a tree was defined as "a plant with a woody stems larger than 10 cm at breast height". 

So, of the 3,040,000,000,000 trees some 1.39 trillion were in the tropics and sub-tropics, 0.61 trillion in temperate regions and 0.74 trillion in the Arctic and sub-arctic coniferous forest - the Boreal Forest.   Tree density is probably greatest in the Boreal Forest / Arctic regions.

Sadly, trees are being removed, cut down faster than they are being replaced.   The report suggests a removal rate of (circa) 15 billion trees per year, and a replacement rate of 5 billion a year.   These figures  should "...give us cause for considering the role that deforestation is playing in changing ecosystem" to quote Dr H B Glick (one of the authors from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies).   Tree removal and deforestation has been a feature of human activity for the last eleven thousand years (since the last Ice Age), perhaps accounting for the removal of some three trillion trees.  It is estimated that the global total of trees has fallen by 46% since the onset of 'human civilisation'.  At one point, most of Europe and Asia was covered in trees but much is now fields and grassland.

]]> https://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-economics/counting-the-trees/feed/ 2 https://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-activities/why-camping-in-your-own-wood-is-special/ https://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-activities/why-camping-in-your-own-wood-is-special/#comments Fri, 11 Jul 2014 00:07:01 +0000 http://www.woodlands.co.uk/?p=21373

Camping in your own wood (or a friend's wood) is totally different than staying at a conventional campsite.  There is more freedom, more choice and more solitude - you can do lots of things that would not normally be allowed.  Recently, I was invited to a woodland to camp with some friends where we experienced free-range camping first-hand.

For any camping expedition, it is important to locate a camping area - we found a grassy glade surrounded by beech trees.  Next, you need to find a good spot on which to pitch your tent - ground that initially seems flat is, by the end of the first night, clearly very 'slopy'!  

Like most people, we probably put up our tents too soon, almost immediately after we arrived, while we were all hungry and still recovering from a long car journey.  We took a while to work out how to fit together the various pieces of the tent.  Thinking we were finished and standing back to admire our handiwork,  we noticed that the poles were meant to go inside rather than outside the tent.  Resignedly we took it apart again and put it up properly - but not without some recriminations from the teenagers.  Definitely time to turn our attention to a campfire.

We established the fireplace at the edge of the clearing and were able to use old bricks to support a grille for pans and a kettle.  Finding suitable firewood was a challenge and the teenagers soon discovered that the pile of cut branches burnt with more smoke than fire, whereas the dead twigs on the forest floor burnt quite easily and burnt very hot.  Things were now looking up even though the kettle boiled too slowly and the sausages cooked too fast.

A commercial campsite will have a toilet block which almost always seems to be a long hike from where your tent is pitched - or if it is next to you it usually 'pongs' and attracts a constant stream of dazed-looking visitors, going right past your tent.  Here, in the woodland, we had no such company and no such comfort, so we set about digging a loo.  We put a plastic box over the hole and cut a circle in the box so that we had a workable WC (but without the water).  We left a spade next to it in order to put back some of the dug earth when needed and we put a loo roll on a stick.  The whole group then cut branches to make a screen to put around our improvised toilet.

We were now starting to relax and change our pace of life from the driven, driving tempo of city life. Probably the sausages and tea had helped too.  I found myself less interested in keeping an eye on the time and stopped worrying about home and work.  There was also nothing we could do about the many things you forget to take when you are camping - we would just enjoy those compromises that you make when camping: reusing plates as washing up was primitive, sitting on whatever logs and stones we could find, and playing football on a pitch with long grass and occasional trees.

For me, the highlight of our woodland camping trip was waking up at three in the morning and seeing the stars.  They were magnificent in a clear black sky and there are thousands of them.  Although everyone has seen them, it seemed to me standing outside my tent, that they were there just for me.  Looking at the shadows of the woodland around I felt a deep satisfaction from being away from it all and alone with nature.  Then I crept back into my tent and, despite the hard ground, I slept like a log until I was woken by the dawn chorus

Camp preparation

Helping hands

This is the ideal Christmas present for anyone who likes trees.  At only £15, 'God's Trees' is both a coffee table book and an authority on the subject of trees in the Bible.  You'll find out about the trees of all the 'Bible lands' including modern-day Israel, Syria, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.  It's not just which trees were there but how they were used -  Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani ) for beams in Solomon's temple, Acacia trees for shade in the Negev desert but most widespread were Olive trees (Olea europaea) which produced olive oil for lighting and cooking.  You can do a cover-to-cover read or just dip in for the pictures and captions enjoying the exotic photos, maps and the illustrations by Veronica Pinchen.

One chapter from 'God's Trees' that stands out looks at trees as metaphors for the good things in life.  The idea is that trees are associated with peace, with establishing permanent homes and with prosperity.  Some of the metaphors are captured in the phrase "Tree of Life" or the notion of using tree branches to make shelters.  The Old Testament figure Nehemiah re-instituted the feast of the tabernacle and urged his people to, "go into the hill country and bring back branches from the olive and wild olive trees, from myrtles, palms and other leafy trees, to make temporary shelters".

Even if you are not at all religious the Bible is so much a part of our culture that homing in on its trees has relevance to everyone.  Julian Evans who wrote 'God's Trees' is as knowledgeable about trees as anyone I've ever met - having been a professor of forestry, a chief research officer for the Forestry Commission and now President of the Institute of Chartered Foresters.  But he also studies the Bible and is a lay preacher. As Julian admitted to me, "I have woven a bit of my own faith into 'God's Trees' ".

The diarist John Evelyn also wrote one of the most famous early books on trees, 'Silva', in which he points out that "trees and woods have twice saved the whole world: first by the ark and then by the cross, making full amends for the evil fruit of the tree of life in paradise."  Julian Evans explores what sort of wood was used for Jesus' cross of crucifixion and reckons it was probably Cypress wood and he points out the irony that most of the "relics" in Europe recovered on the Crusades or in other times are in fact made from pine or oak - trees that are more common in Western Europe.

By the time you get to the end of the book, you realise just how important trees are to the whole fabric of the bible and biblical times - with towns and places named after trees (Gethsemane means Olive press etc) and, in an age before plastics, wood was the main material for making objects of everyday life (Jesus of course was a carpenter's son), but for my money the best part of 'God's Trees' is the vast array of photos which give the woodland enthusiast an armchair tour of the middle east.  This book is something to put under the Christmas Tree, another of "God's Trees".   You can get the book for £15 from www.dayone.co.uk (01568 613740); or from Amazon .

Recently a friend of mine exclaimed that China gets through 80 billion disposable chopsticks a year.  This is enough to fill Tiananmen Square three times over.  With a population of 1.4 billion, the demand for these utensils is eating away at China’s forests, at a staggering rate.  China's natural forest resources are extremely limited (139th in the world); despite this, 3.8 million trees a year are being cut down - that is, about 100 acres every 24 hours.

This deforestation is having knock-on environmental effects, causing landslides, flooding and leading to climate change.  One of the contributors to forest over-exploitation is the demand for disposable chopsticks.  The situation is not looking any more promising as the uptake for Asian cuisine is becoming more common across the globe.

Chopsticks have been part of China’s culinary history for the last 4000 years. In 2100 BC,  the founder of the Xia dynasty, Da Yu, first used chopsticks to eat his food. Since then, the merits of chopsticks compared to knives and forks have frequently been discussed. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld commented that 'parting the Chinese from their chopsticks is no mean feat'. However, it is beginning to look like the debate will end in an environmentally-friendly way.

For example, action has been taken to raise awareness of the effects of over-production and not recycling disposable chopsticks.  In 2006, authorities in China levied a 5% tax on disposable chopsticks.  Encouragingly the chairman of the Jilin Forestry Industry Group, Bo Guangxin, is aware of some of the issues, arguing that 'we must change our consumption habits and encourage people to carry their own tableware'. The most prominent recent 'chopsticks awareness' campaign has been Greenpeace’s 2010 ‘Turning Chopsticks into Trees’.  This campaign erected four trees that were 16 feet tall, created using 84,000 used chopsticks - visit their site to see 'the trees'.  Re-usable chopsticks were also handed out to passers by in order to encourage more sustainable food consumption.

So next time you find yourself feeling guilty about asking the waitress in ‘Wagamama’ or ‘Imperial City’ for a fork, instead of the using the supplied chopsticks, rest assured you are really doing the right thing.

Brighton in Sussex is home to Britain’s largest population of Elm trees. These 19,000 elm trees are known as The National Collection. Elm trees are increasingly rare due to the blight brought by Dutch Elm disease principally in the 1970s.  Initially this came into the UK as long ago as 1926.  Dutch Elm disease is a fungus carried by beetles and affects only elm trees. In response to this attack, an elm tree will automatically produce tyloses, an effective natural defence against the 1926 strain of Dutch Elm disease. Tyloses occur in the xylem - water conducting vessels of the plant / tree, sealing them off and restricting the movement of the pathogen.

However in the early 1970's,  a new strain of Dutch Elm disease was imported from channel ports, linked directly to the Canadian Rock Elm. This strain travels faster through the elm trees and kills them before they can produce tyloses. Since the introduction of this strain of Dutch Elm disease to Britain, the number of elm trees has gone down from about 3 million to fewer than 200,000 and many of these are very young ones which will certainly succumb to the disease. Elm trees reproduce by root stalks more often than by seed and so this transmission mechanism quickly spreads the disease between elm trees and along elm hedgerows.

Why are there still any elm trees in Brighton despite Dutch Elm disease?

Brighton’s National Collection of elm trees has been preserved by preventing Dutch Elm disease from getting into Brighton. The South Downs and The English Channel form natural defences across which the disease cannot easily travel. Brighton’s elm trees are most threatened, according to elm tree expert Rob Greenland, from the Chichester planes and from the Shoreham direction. The tracking of beetles using pheromone traps and tactical pruning of infected boughs is used by the council to help stop Dutch Elm disease spreading.

Can elm trees in the rest of Britain survive Dutch Elm disease?
Elm trees can also be protected through chemical treatment, which is effective although expensive. Other techniques such as reproducing elms which are genetically immune to Dutch Elm disease are being developed: one example is the propogation programme of Paul King. The cost of failure is high in terms of biodiversity as Elm trees support a range of other species. For example, the White Letter Hairstreak butterfly and many other species depend on the elm tree for nutrition and survival, and so they too are also in danger as a result of Dutch Elm disease. Aside from biodiversity if the Brighton National Collection were to get infected, Rob Greenland estimates it could cost £20 million in remedial and replanting work to clear up and replace these elms with other species.

Meeting Rob Greenland is an education in the world of elm trees. He is so enthusiastic about elms that his car number plate is R2 ELM. He has a website dedicated to elm trees and even though he is now retired Rob is happy to show people round Brighton’s National Collection.

As he says, ‘’The National Collection in Brighton is like a fortress with heavy stone walls, but all the buildings inside are made of wood in the fight against Dutch Elm disease."