The plantation produces more uniform trees with equal access to light and everything on level ground. This makes the timber straighter and more predictable. I don't think average growth speed is affected but, because they can get their tractors down the aisles, I expect they fertilise heavily.The Finns are past masters at this but their timber is still top quality. I was quite impressed with the "Southern Yellow Pine" I used the other day. 12" x 1" and dead flat over a 5 metre length. Obviously fast grown in southern climes (USA?) but a heavily figured red grain that I'm not keen on. Very sticky too.
By level ground I guess you mean "equal opportunity", because plantation forestry can and does happen in the hills.
On any given site, as long as there is some mutual sheltering and competition top height is almost independent of spacing and competition, also once the canopy has closed the actual volume of timber produced is dependant on the site. So because trees in plantations are planted from seedlings/transplants the initial spacing is what affects the volume each tree achieves, there is of course a lot of variability between stems. It's sorting these out what thinning is about. Thinning concentrates the increment on the remaining stems. It's because our climate and soils produce large volume increments per hectare and lower planting rates (bigger spacing) that our timber is fast grown, i.e. has small number of rings per inch. This also has some effect on the size of knots being bigger.
Fertilising timber crops is virtually unheard of in UK, though Yorkshire water did look into owning tree farming land as an acceptable way to dispose of sewage sludge. The rows are largely an establishment and management feature.
They grow their timber on a much longer rotation as the growth rate is lower so more years are needed to yield a sawlog size. Side branches become shaded and break off (from snow loading) whilst the stem is thin, subsequent layers of timber added are thus clear.
I was unaware of that, though I can see peat would be benefit from P&K. Tax rebates were the way much private forestry was funded especially since the opportunities for avorsion were identified from
59 to ~74, even after there were big opportunities for high earners on paye, such that many practices were undertaken that were not strictly economic, because effectively the other tax payers were paying for 90% of the work and it was undertaken by management companies with an eye to turnover rather than best practice.
Oak not durable as window material. I've removed many old windows (mostly sash) which had oak sills and softwood elsewhere. Quite common to find severely rotten oak but softwood still in good nick. Have removed softwood pulley stiles completely untouched by rot or worm, from oak cills totally rotted to dust. The main reason for this is that softwood takes paint better and also important is proper detail design especially weathering at cills. "Unsorted" grades of swedish or russian redwood is often very high quality and has been used for hundreds of years and can be found in very old windows all over Britain.
Poplar is not what is normally used for any quality - it's used to make a very light plywood for models (liteply) bit birch is the main one for quality ply
Not if proper design details, installation and maintenance. The point I was making was that oak sills last less well than softwood sills. I sometimes wonder if woodworm are tree species specific in that they can remove an oak sill thoroughly without even touching the adjacent softwood.
Woodworm will eat oak sapwood but not heartwood. I suspect your rotten oak sills were made with sapwood, which should never be included in external joinery as it is not durable. Oak heartwood should outlast most softwoods by a few centuries.
It's easy when you are making the window with new wood. The sapwood is a lighter colour and forms a layer a couple of inches thick under the bark. Sometimes it has wormholes and can be softer. However, if sapwood had been included in an old cill and you are now looking at it a hundred years on, it would be much harder to distinguish.
btw, American oak is not as durable as English and European.
Ive not found this to be the case, frankly. Its all down to how the wood is treated.
Oak has a propensity to split and destroy surface coatings. Softwood is more likley to get pinholse in the paint and contain the damp and fall to pieces utterly.
Knowing your wood and the appropaite wetherproofing, plus of course intelligent design of drip boarda etc, is the key.
Taste. Heartwood is bitter (why the bugs don't like to eat it).
Colour _might_ tell you, but not always. If you're going to ammonia fume the finished article to colour it, then it's sometimes worthwhile fuming the raw board. Heartwood will darken, tannin-poor sapwood doesn't. It's a lot better to discover the limits of the sapwood before beginning, so you can cut it all away,
Sapwood is also on the outside of the log. Just looking at the rings might give you enough of a clue.
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