Juniper ‘berries’ are fragrant and provide the oils / chemicals that give gin a distinctive flavour.  The ‘berries’ used in gin production are rarely from the U.K. Many come from Italy or Macedonia, where the hot summers allow the full development of these oils (contained within the seeds).  A ‘berry’ takes some two years to come to maturity and ripen fully.  The ‘berries’ are often harvested by beating the Juniper shrub with a stick so that the ripe ‘berries’ fall to the ground for collection. The ‘berries’ are not, in fact, berries but cones.  Juniper is a conifer (the other two native coniferous trees are Scots Pine and Yew).  Whereas the cone of Scots Pine hardens and become a woody structure as it ages, the cone of Juniper has fleshy, ‘soft’ scales that merge together to give a berry like structure, which encloses the seeds.  The ‘berries’ or cones are green when young but turn a purple black colour as they mature. Read more...

A recent report on "Creating a sustainable future for our woodlands and forests" forms the basis for a new campaign - Grown in Britain.  This campaign aims to promote products grown in UK woodlands, to pull private funding towards British Forestry and to harness the positive energy around woodlands in general.  The Grown in Britain campaign grew out of the 2012 Independent Panel on Forestry and is making a good start at promoting UK timber production.  At a Woodfuel conference (last Autumn) in Surrey Hills , the director of the campaign, Peter Bonfield, joked that this is about being "Grown in Britain" and not about a "Groan in Britain". Read more...

Every now and then, whilst strolling through a woodland one comes across a truly massive coniferous tree - with a thick fibrous bark.  Such trees are usually redwoods - often planted many years ago as an 'exotic'.   Victorian land owners were quite 'fond' of planting unusual species.   There are three species of coniferous trees known as the redwoods – the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens ), the giant redwood (sometimes known as Wellingtonia) (Sequoiadendron giganteum), and the dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) . The first two are natives of the western Sierra Nevada of California Read more...

Appearing at the Wood Fuel Conference in Surrey Hills, Matthew Woodcock set out the raw figures showing why he's optimistic that South East England can help to reduce its carbon emissions from fossil fuels.  Mr. Woodcock pointed out that the South East is a relatively wooded region and that a quarter of all England's woodlands are in the South East and they cover over 15% of the land area.  Assuming that two thirds could be got into active management, he reckons that 1,000,000 cubic metres of woodfuel could be produced every year, which would create enough heat for 100,000 homes (or even more if homes were made more sustainable with insulation and similar measures).  The challenge according to Matthew Woodcock is to revive the whole sector - for many years, the south eastern timber industry has been in decline and many firms have gone out of business and even the advanced age of many forestry workers is a serious issue. Read more...

The Amazonian forests are estimated to be home to some 390 billion trees, and some 16,000 different tree species.  The Amazon Basin includes bits of Peru, Brazil, the Guiana Shield and Columbia. However, it has recently been estimated* that 227 species make up half of these billions of trees.   That is 1.4% of the total species  count make up 50% of the trees. The 227 species identified as ‘hyper-dominants’ seem to have no obvious physical / special features (such as seed mass or wood density), and they range from shade tolerant climax species (with large seeds) to smaller seeded, shade-intolerant pioneer types (those that colonise clearings initially). Read more...

About a year ago the RSPB, along with Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, put the cat among the proverbial pigeons by arguing that use of some woodfuel is "Dirtier than Coal".  This caused controversy amongst woodfuel zealots but the study showed that not all woodfuel is created equally.   The report was particularly concerned about subsidies which encourage the burning of whole trees where they are grown especially for woodfuel, and where these displace other land uses often to be transported long distances for power stations.  The "Dirtier than Coal' report said that full carbon accounting was necessary and we should take account of the short term effect of clear felling rather than using thinings: clear felling can lose the benefit of carbon fixing which is achieved by letting trees grow on.  The RSPB position is that we need to do full carbon accounting, create new woodlands and set up coherent sustainability standards. Read more...