Harvesting operations are planned not only to demonstrate good silviculture and habitat conservation but also to produce maximum value from the standing crop. Our extensive market knowledge ensures that we can extract the best value from the trees.

We adopt a range of processes from motor-manual cutters to purpose built harvesting machinery and use our experience to select the right approach for individual client needs.

All operatives and sub-contractors are qualified, trained and vetted to work on our sites. Our Forest Works Managers provide site management and supervision to ensure continued high standards of performance and safety compliance.

We undertake all the operations required to maintain a sustainably managed woodland. These include the following:

• Ditching and drainage

• Ride-side clearance

• Reinstatement

• Ground clearance and stump removal

• Mulching

• Lake and pond restoration

• Tree surgery

• Fencing, gates and deer exclusion plots

• Brash recovery

• Loading bay construction

• Forest roading

• Brush cutting

• Tree planting

• Windrowing

We often bring these supplementary services into the timber harvesting process providing a comprehensive service to our landowners.

Working with roadside woodlands and trees requires specialist skills and experience, often using alternative equipment to that used for harvesting timber. We offer a comprehensive service for removing or reducting trees including the organisation of traffic management and road permits.

These works can form part of a harvesting operation or as a stand-alone process in response to tree safety reports.

Coppicing chestnut is a traditional practice producing durable fencing - stakes, strainers and rails - that do not need chemical preservatives due to its natural durability.

The work is a craft suited to hand cutters. Sites are worked from October to April when the trees are not in leaf. Powell Forestry conducts an annual cutting programme on several woodlands throughout southeast England.

We are experienced in handling diseased and infested material and are registered with the Forestry Commission as a professional operator.

We operate Plant Passports, working under plant health notices and movement restrictions and with customers who are Approved Processors for many affected crops. At all times we seek to ensure the best available cost recovery for timber.

Current challenges include:

• The larger eight-toothed European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus)

Powell Forestry has been actively engaging with the Forestry Commission since 2021 to ensure we are able to provide commercial solutions to this problem.

• Ash dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus)

We are experienced in working with ash trees affected by ash dieback which often present an operational challenge.

Our ash removal is usually caried out as a commercial operation with safety a core consideration. Each site is very different, and we have adapted our harvesting techniques to suit removing ash as a round wood and carrying out brash extraction when appropriate.