Willow is the best firewood in the world for us.
However, if I could magically have a lifetime supply of any species of firewood I wouldn't
choose willow. So, why do I say it's the best firewood in the world. Now that is an interesting
[Music] question! Choosing the right firewood to grow is a complicated business. Maybe we should
grow a heavy hardwood like this ash or maybe a slightly lighter hardwood like willow or maybe
we should go for softwood and grow pine. There are so many species of tree to choose from and
so many variables to consider, it just seems a crazy complicated problem. Not if you ask the
right questions! Thanks Hogle. He's right you know. Asking what is the best firewood isn't the
right question. We need to figure out what the right question is so that we get the right answer
that leads us to where we want to be. Now for us, it leads to Willow and coppicing. It might lead
you there, too. To understand how we arrived at willow being the right tree for us, we have to
ask the right question. What do we have? What are we starting with? Now, your situation might
be completely different and you might come up with completely different questions and completely
different answers. Our situation is that we live in the North of England. Our soil is mostly
clay, not completely, but mostly clay and we get about a meter of rainfall every year so the rain
doesn't drain away very well at all. We also get a huge amount of wind. We're on the side of a hill
here and it's very exposed so we need a tree that can deal with all of that. I think we need to add
another element to our question. What species can we grow that will keep us warm in the not too
distant future? If we grow trees that take 25 years to get big enough to be cut for a firewood
we're going to be kind of old. I'm in my late 40s now. I know I look much younger than that, but if
we grow a tree for 25 years, cut it down and then say, two seasons for drying period, I'm going
to be 75 by the time I get to light my first homegrown firewood. I think we need to shorten the
time scale somewhat - maybe down to 10 years. That sounds better. Here on our smallholding we have
the fantastic benefit of somebody else's hard work 25 years ago. Our predecessors planted
all of these trees in the early 2000s. Now, this oak tree next to me is 75 cm or 29 inches in
circumference, so it's done quite well - just over an inch in circumference per year. And, this
scot's pine is much the same but in all that 25 years they haven't grown all that much and
if we cut them down now they wouldn't provide us with even a month worth of heat never mind
keeping it warm all winter on the other hand this Aspen is also 25 years old it is 123 CM or
48 in in circumference but without even measuring it you can see it's at least three times as big
as the Oak in the Scotts Pine so this might be a good choice for us this Willow is also 25 years
old sadly blew down in a storm two nights ago it is 120 cm in circumference and has a number of
large branches on that'll make good firewood so it's grown almost as fast as the Aspen this is a
good illustration of why we're so keen on copine trees that grow tall have a tendency to get blown
over our sight is very exposed so that's another thing we need to add to our question what trees
can we grow that can be cassed now our hope with this tree is once I cut the timber off of it
the root ball should then fall back down and being Willow I'm hoping that it might re-shoot and
become a Copus itself of course we could just grow the biggest tree in the world a load of these
things this is a sequoia a giant Redwood when it's mature and about 3,000 years time it will
provide us with a lifetime of firewood maybe not to help us formulate our question and find the
right species for us to grow it's important to take note of a very interesting fact which is
that all trees are actually the same what this means is that once they're dry a ton of wood of
any variety has the same amount of heat in it give or take a few percent have a look at this graph
it was created by Forest research they're the research arm of the forestry commission which is a
UK government body they are the the people in this country who know their trees you'll see that all
of the wood has almost identical heat values what they did was they took a sample of common hard
and soft Woods that grow in Britain dried them all to the same moisture content then burn them
to Ash and measured the heat that came off of them and it almost all identical you'll notice at the
far end of the graph the ones that actually have the most heat by weight are the softwoods this is
due to their resin content which burns a bit more energetic full than the normal dry matter of the
tree now this has an interesting consequence in a sense it doesn't matter what tree we choose to
grow because by weight you get the same amount of heat now obviously Pine is much less dense than
oak or Ash Willow is about 50% water so when you dry it you lose about half of your weight now the
reason is because in something like Pine or Willow the fibers the dry matter is quite widely spaced
and the rest of it is filled in with water so as you dry it the water goes away and you lose about
half your weight something like Oak is about 30% water so you lose a lot less as it dries so it's
a denser wood when you pick it up when it's dry what this means of course is that for a ton of Any
Given wood if it's Oak It'll be such a size but if you're talking comparing it to Willow it'll be
about a 40% bigger pile of wood for given weight but the important thing is this pound for pound
ton for ton you get the same amount of heat from Ash as you do from Pine that's useful we want to
make sure that the firewood we use doesn't cause unnecessary environmental damage in fact we want
to improve habitat in what we burn we're fortunate on our land that we have a number of large old
trees like this beach tree and lots of ash trees on an old overgrown head Edge over there now we
could cut these down for firewood they would be better than Willow but we're not going to and
there's a number of reasons why first off they create habitat for a wide range of animals
nesting places for Birds also because they're old they would take a very long time to regrow but
mostly they're just beautiful being around large old trees is good for the soul if we cut this
down that would be gone unfortunately cassine mature trees doesn't really work I mean you might
be with a chance with Willow like the one I showed you earlier we got our fingers crossed for that
one but this is Beach it blew over in the Autumn of 2018 in storm alley lands it across the field
over there we chopped it all up for firewood and The Roots then flip this back the right way up
so after four Summers of growth this is all we have to show for it and it's beginning to rot
so unfortunately copine mature trees doesn't really work so there you have it what is the best
firewood isn't a very useful question at all our question needs to be something along the lines of
what species of tree will give us the most heat per acre per year be ready in a reasonable time
frame doesn't mind being cassed good for wildlife and thrives in our climate that's more like it the
answer is Willow might be for you as well now we aren't just growing Willow we' planted thousands
of other trees we have Oak and Hazel and Birch and Aspen and we're going to see how well they
do compared to our Willow but we are relying on these for the bul of of our firewood we'll let you
know how it goes hope you enjoyed that thanks for watching
