Establishing and Maintaining the Site
The first three months in the life of your fuelwood plantation are critical
for the rooting of cuttings, seeds, or seedlings. If severe drought is forecast,
try to find some temporary way to pump, pipe, or carry water to the young
trees. Suppress weeds by mechanical means or by patch- or strip-spraying
herbicides. This spraying might involve the use of a preemergence product,
which is applied before trees leaf out, or a postemergence product that
kills grasses. We cannot endorse any uses of herbicides that are not included
on manufacturers' labels. Use of Herbicides in Establishing Woody Plants
(see Sources) gives more information on this
subject.
If you have planted trees, you may need to thin the rows to achieve recommended
spacings. If these extra seedlings are removed with roots intact and are
kept moist, they can be transplanted to a holding bed or small garden and
grown as reserves to replace any seedlings that perish during the first
few years. If trees have a good first growing season, the plantation is
likely to succeed. A poor first season will mean replacing some trees and
continuing intensive care (watering and providing extra weed control) for
another year.
The only maintenance the plantation will require during the second, third,
and fourth years is weed control. Fertilizer additions are generally unnecessary
after trees have become established. Cleared firebreaks around and through
the plantation will reduce fire risks. Livestock must be kept out of the
plantation. In the fifth year, you should begin to evaluate growth and thin
or harvest the stand if it is ready.
All tree cutting, whether for thinning or final harvest, should be done
in the late fall or winter after the trees have lost their leaves. Before
going dormant, trees relocate sugars, nutrients, and water to the roots;
therefore, the harvested tops will have drier wood, and the root stocks
will have a rich supply of energy to support the coppice growth in the spring.
You will want to consider thinning a fuelwood plantation after five years,
especially if you have chosen the closer spacing (8 feet by 8 feet). As
a general rule, thin out trees as the canopy closes- that is, when you can
no longer detect major gaps between trees when you look up through the crown.
The first trees to be removed should be any diseased, deformed, or suppressed
trees.
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