Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The age at which it is best to harvest a forest depends on many things, including volume production, the risk of wind blow, sawmill requirements regarding log sizes and current market prices. Forest owners may wish to fell early, delay felling or in some cases not fell at all for their own reasons. The Department and Teagasc provide guidance to landowners on the timing of harvesting their plantations. What is of utmost importance for the Department is to ensure, through the felling licence system, that the felling and replanting is carried out in a manner that accords with sustainable forest management principles.

Rotation length is defined as the length of time between planting the trees and clear felling the final forest. There are many factors that impact on the rotation length such as species, site productivity, thinning regime, market requirements and site constraints. In addition, forests located in exposed areas may suffer from the effects of windblow resulting in the earlier harvesting of plantations. In 2014, Storm Darwin blew down more than 8,000 hectares of forest in the country.

Until recently, the majority of clear felling and replanting has been concentrated in the public estate. A significant portion of the private forest estate, particularly conifers, that were afforested in the 1980s and the early 1990s are now approaching a stage where forest owners are considering the best time to fell. In some cases forests will be thinned and in other cases clear felled, depending on the site's particular characteristics. Conifer species typically have rotations between 30 and 40 years of age, with broadleaved crops taking much longer, in some cases more than 100 years. Decisions made to clear fell crops are based on a variety of different reasons and to a large extent depend on the size of trees that the market will take. We have seen very productive stands of conifers growing to sizes suitable for sawmilling in less than 30 years.

The general principle of rotation length is to provide the optimum return to the grower, consistent with the principle of sustainable forest management. In some cases, the need to replace unproductive trees with a more productive crop or the early clear felling of trees susceptible to windblow may lead to a crop being felled earlier.

In February 2016, my Department invited tenders to assess the impact of forest felling age on overall financial return. The purpose of this work is to provide information to make growers and foresters aware of the possible impact of felling age on overall financial return. The results of this work will be made available in the coming weeks on the Department's website through a new interactive tool that allows forest owners and managers to assess the optimum felling age of their forest. The provision of this information will inform forest owners and managers on the appropriate felling age with a view to maximising the return on their investment and remaining consistent with the principle of sustainable forest management. It is vital that landowners have a positive experience from their forestry investments and that revenue from the first rotation facilitates reforestation to continue the forest cycle.

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