Hadley Wood is
managed, but only
for the convenience
of pedestrian traffic
passing through, with
accompanying high
levels of soil compaction,
clearly not conducive to ideal
tree performance, especially for
shallow-rooted beech trees. Leggatt’s
Wood and Little Heath Wood are completely
unmanaged and appear to have been that way
for at least 40 years.
Northaw Great Wood is the only woodland
environment managed near to best practice in
relation to silviculture and woodland ecology.
The extension rates for young beech trees
are accordingly much higher; double those
recorded in the other three woodlands. The
highest extension growth rates recorded
appear in line with that expected from beech
trees of equivalent age and size, but growing
in a monoculture plantation environment
which is an enhanced and more uniform
growing environment both above and below
ground.
The competition situation for beech in these
woodlands both aerially and underground can
only be imagined, and might not unreasonably
described as a veritable dog’s breakfast.
Other trees growing around and alongside
beech trees represent a dozen or more
different species of widely different sizes and
ages, from holly understorey to full-blown
English oak standards, some as near as one
metre or less to these young beech trees.
This could account for the wide variation in
extension growth rates recorded on the same
beech tree and between different beech trees
in the same woodland.
Much is made of beech being a shade-
tolerant tree, but young beech trees studied
here showed substantial differences in
extension growth rates in relation to the
amount of shade, with those branchlets in
deep permanent shade putting on minimal
extension growth. For practical purposes,
extension growth measurements were
restricted to a height of 3 m from the ground.
Growth rates achieved in the higher, better-
illuminated but inaccessible upper reaches of
these young trees could well be greater and
perhaps more uniform than those recorded
further down the canopy.
Young beech trees in Leggat’s Wood, Little
Heath Wood and Hadley Wood appeared to
respond well to the presence of holly under-
storey and its presumed nurse effect. This
was not evident in Northaw Great Wood,
simply because there is virtually
no holly under and around the
beech trees.BEECH TICKING ALL
THE RIGHT BOXES
These four beech tree
populations tick all the
boxes for withstanding
any consequences of
climate change. Mature
trees are producing huge
quantities of viable seed,
germinating freely to produce
seedling trees with a clumped
distribution pattern traditionally
accepted as the foundation factor in formation
of the typical beech tree grove.
The long-established reasoning behind this
phenomenon is as follows. Due to the erratic
nature of seed bearing by beech, with years of
plenty followed by around five years of famine,
wild mammals and birds which feed on beech
nuts adapt accordingly by hoarding far more
than they can subsequently consume.
This allows beech nuts to germinate and
establish as groups of young trees of the same
age and size and to subsequently develop into
a beech grove. A combination of the beech
tree’s shallow foraging roots which mop up
nutrients, an accumulating deep resilient leaf
litter that smothers all else, and a dense shade
cast by the collective geometry of beech leaf
disposition on the branches may, in the right
situation, allow evolution of pure beech groves
and uniform beech woodland.
The girth of the biggest trees (CBH 300
to 400+ cm) in these woodlands shows
beech is still capable of attaining normal
life expectancy of around 250 years, with
anything over regarded as a bonus. Loss
recorded in Hadley Wood from disease, trees
being blown over or simply advanced age isno greater than for common ash, English oak
and hornbeam, and considerably less than
might be expected given the extreme shallow
rootedness of beech. Given the age and size
of beech trees identified, measured and
assessed (200–400+ cm) a less-than-10% failure
rate is remarkable; hardly the measure of a
tree that is on the way out.
Climate change proponents pinpoint the last
30+ years as the period when the UK climate
started to warm up to the detriment of beech
trees in southern England. Given that beech
trees grow in girth by around 2.5 cm each
year, trees profiled in this study would have
germinated from viable seed, established
and grown in girth by a standard 2.5 cm per
year all within a climate-warming time frame
(1985 to 20 10 ), and mostly within unmanaged
woodland.BEECH HERE TO STAY
Beech in Britain, it appears, is going nowhere
in a hurry. Just as well because beech as a
mainstream, native broadleaf tree without
an immediate and potentially lethal pest or
disease problem is in a minority of one.
The ongoing arrival and establishment
of exotic insect pests and diseases is a far
bigger and more immediate problem than
any conceivable effects of climate change.
Commentators continue to link the increased
arrival and establishment of exotic pests
and diseases with climate change, but this is
plainly wrong.
These insect pests and diseases may well
be arriving from Europe, but most originate in
the cool temperate regions of northern Asia,
where winter conditions are much harsher
than our own. Arrival from EU countries is
entirely down to the lack of biosecurity and
quarantine in ‘free trade’ in pests and diseases
between EU countries.
Once established, exotic pests and diseases
react to the vagaries of UK weather just as
OPM did in 2014 following a frost-free winter
and warm spring; with a huge population
increase on the previous year, though that is
something entirely different.
The message sent loud and clear to
conservationists is to stop culling beech
trees because you do not consider Fagus
sylvatica as truly native in your neck of the
woods. English elm has gone, common ash is
finished, and English oak and sweet chestnut
are seriously threatened. Look after common
beech because there are precious few, if any,
mainstream native or naturalised timber tree
options left.
The only thing left to do for the beech tree
is to deal with the grey squirrel problem.
Apparently unsolvable, but when you consider
the number of mammalian species made
extinct worldwide in the last 100 years, it
should not be beyond native wit to reduce the
UK grey squirrel population to a sub-economic
threshold level.FORESTRYJOURNAL.CO.UK MAY 20 18 71The beginnings of
regeneration – beech
tree seedlings in
Hadley Wood.