by stymaar 9 hours ago
Are coppicing and pollarding used at all to produce timber? I had the impression that it was done only to make firewood, and was cut repeatedly without letting it grow like described in the article.
Ben Law in the UK used a sweet chestnut coppice as timbers for his house. Done properly coppicing can not only produce renewable and sustainable timber, but it is one of the only woodland management techniques that has significant positive impact on the ecology of the woodland in which it is practiced.
Some of the big "evil" forestry practices are now known to be helpful. Even clearcutting, if done in strips, is know to open up diverse habitats, replacing a uniform forest with a more varied one more amenable to animals.
Coppicing is used for lumber for baskets and other weaving techniques, at least in Appalachia.
I had first heard of the concept of doing this to trees as it related to the production of arrows...