Forest Thinning & Roads Field Evening

Inishowen Forest Owners Group, Inishowen Co-op and the Western Forestry Co-op jointly organised a well attended Field event on a beautiful summer evening in Tullydish, Buncrana. The field evening brought together forest owners from around Donegal to outline and discuss a first thinning operation on two privately owned forests. Forest owners were shown and discussed the need for inspection paths, fertilisation requirements, inventory plots, felling license, forest roading and timber stacking.

During the course of the evening the timeline of forest operations to maximise the return from your forest enterprise was outlined. As an example of this both forest owners who had just done the 1st Thinning had opted to keep the lower value product i.e. the pulp for their own use. For one of the owner’s both he and his son had installed wood gasification boilers in their own homes and the pulp from the first thinning will provide fuel security for both of them for up to 10 years. The other forest owner is keeping the pulp for firewood for both his own use and to sell. The higher value products from the first thinning (namely the stake wood and pallet wood) were sold to the sawmill.

The main points discussed throughout the course of the evening included:

1. The need for inspections paths to assess the progress of your forest
2. Application for a felling licence
3. Forest Roading requirements and grant aid available
4. Sourcing of contractor for harvesting and haulage of timber from the forest
5. Selling of timber to sawmills
6. Keeping some of the timber for your own fuel requirements
7. Future management of forests

Willie Callaghan of Inishowen Forest Owners Group and the Western Forestry Co-op would like to thank both Michael Doherty and John Mc Carron for the use their forests for the field evening, Paddy Gallen of Inishowen Co-op for their support in promoting the event and providing the helmets and Hi-viz jackets and Steven Meyen of Teagasc for his valuable input in to the evening. For more information please contact Willie Callaghan Inishowen Forest Owners Group or Simon McMenamin, Forester Western Forestry Co-op 087-2470804.