How much digestable yield in a large willow? (Thinkin of feed'n Cows) I guess if i chop and drop im gunna lose shade
https://www.grassland.org.nz/publications/nzgrassland_publication_275.pdf Bottom of page 2 has a comparo of 3 Willows of different sizes and the increases in DM. You could extrapolate.
Thanks SOP ! Lots of varietys i've never heard of!! Pruned a couple of male thorney Gleditsia yesterday and the cattle were very keen on the forage (when given the choiceof G v's sheep nuts) I have a couple of larger willows that must have closer to a tonne of feed just a little tricky to get down safely A thought on willows ? They might onley become a problem when one doesnt achieve a yield!
Some large Willows at the parent-in-laws, never harvested except by me for Willow water. One on a dam overflow, 5 on another dam overflow redirect. About 20m tall, base about 600mm. Any work would be very damaging to them, would prefer a nice Willow pollard setup but a coppice stump would work I suppose. What's the issue with the getting them down? If you are tricky with a throwbag, you can weave a line through the branches and around the back of the canopy and pull a rope through so it's fully encircled. Put the canopy under a slight load with a tractor, do your scarf/notch and backcut, leaving a good 2 inches of holding wood, get out of there and let the tractor do the work.
Too hard probably. Either climber, tower or polesaw to prune up into the canopy but then pruning next time would be difficult too. Would depend on the tree and the size of the wounds. Coppice would be your only option and then perhaps protect the regrowth for 3 years?
We just spent one day a week for 10 weeks cutting back willows, and they resprouted within a week. One really big one fell over in a big wind storm, was at least 25 meters long, it started sprouting all along it. We left big stumps to hang on to while we had to hang off of them to cut below them as well, and the deer, bucks, have come along and rubbed their antlers on them, which I've never seen before. I like giving them a reason to hang around. We had to do all this with an arching handsaw because they are on a steep slope, but it was easy. We clipped off green growth really easily with long-handled clippers. If you get long whips of new growth you can tie them horizontally, isolate them until they have hardened with new growth. They will sprout, and resprout, the cows can help themselves. Nothing we did stopped the growth of those willows!
Everything we cut is already sprouting back. The large horizontal willow that went over in a wind storm only has about 1/3 of its roots in the ground, even after chopping the ends off, it is still sprouting.
andrew, "ant or other insect" that's a big spectrum. Have you actually seen an insect? Might be that the willows are stressed and leaking without any critter causing it. that's usually why a tree leaks sap. Is it on all of them? One of them? One of them that's farther away from the water? Is it all over the tree? In one place?
Nah definatly critters bit like aphids grass under tree shiny as well Sheep seem to still like it (sweet)
But trees leak sap because of stress of some other kind, and the aphids (or whatever) find it after the case. Is this the first time it's happened? Is there a drought? Are they too close together? Are other new plants growing in among them that cause the willows to fight for water? Are the sheep new to that area? Are they chewing on the bark?
Im not sure if it even sap ,willow sap isnt sweet !! Perhaps it is critter vomit/excretion! Dunno! Ill go Have another look! It isnt the sheep it is happening in several places Could be sawfly!???
*LOL* Massive Insect Vomit! Nothing like an attack of MIV!! Your insects are stressed and vomiting! Good heavens! The sawfly larvae on my fruit trees here are black catepillar-looking things that are quite visible. There's a yellow one on elm trees. I had an invasion when our drought first started and I hadn't stepped up the watering. They ate the leaves of fruit trees and pooped on the leaves, but there was no sap coming out of the tree. Extra water seems to have solved that issue, and washing the leaves with a blast from the hose. Did you knock some of it onto a white piece of paper and use a magnifiying glass? Are they multiple trunked willows? Did you happen to coppice one of the trunks? And it's summer, or late summer there? That might have stressed it. I have mild winters and any coppicing I do works best here in mid to later winter, spring if it is still raining. Obviously not if it's freezing outside. If it's aphids or sweet pooping insects, trying hosing down the bark to wash it off. If it comes back you might see a pattern. They usually gather on a stressed plant.
I recon that is it chook! I aso noticed ants since i first posted i assumed they were predating on the aphids but they could be after the sugar! Guess i need more insectavours!!
