Saplings and beyond

Permaculture-wise, how do you deal with saplings (well maybe more like young trees now) that are in the 'wrong' place?  Plus also, what do you do when another tree has seeded itself at the base of another and the previous owners didn't take action?  Like our walnut trees all seem to have young ash trees in at the bottom of them.

I would first try to really decide if it was in an innapropriate spot and see if you can 'work with it'. if not, an attempt at a transplant would be my next move. it may or may not work but worth a shot and better than just destroying it.

whever possible we try to transplant trees that aren't appropriate to an area where they would better fit in..say a hedge row or windbreak or a wildlife corriodore

ok that seems like what i'd like to do but if the saplings are about 1.5m high, will they be easy-ish to get out?  like, how far will the roots spread?

and what about those that are right in at the base of other trees?  can both survive? these ones are now about 3m high and are tree-ish not saling-ish.  if one has to come out, how do we do it?  if we just chop off at groung level then i'm guessing it will effectively be coppicing and it will shoot out from all around.

It might be several years before the roots stop sending up suckers.  Obviously it will be less time if the suckers produce less energy, and if the below-ground tissue is damaged.  Sustainable coppicing allows time for roots to regain their strength.

This is probably a bad idea, but I wonder if a parasite like mistletoe could be encouraged on the stumps you don't want.

those roots might be surpringly big at that size. or deep if it has a tap root. I dug up a peach tree that was 4-5 feet height (1.5 ish meters) and barely got any root at all. I replanted it and it did fine. but I have tried to dig up oaks that were rather small and couldn't get the tap root and they died.

oak and nut trees do have a single deep taproot and really should not be transplanted..but anything that has side to side rooting like maples and fruit trees are good candidates

Here's how Tim and Sandra do it!
https://youtu.be/w9TxYOvp7Ic

@ Amanda - that was a lovely link!  I will point out for newbies, that trees that root on a green roof will have been forced by the shallow soil to put their roots out laterally even if that wasn't in the nature of the species involved. That would certainly mean less digging to harvest them!  I have heard of mulching with sheep's wool, but I haven't tried it. Slugs supposedly don't like crossing wool, so if I can get some wool dregs from a friend, I will try it this year. I have a different friend with a poodle who needs occasional pruning, but does anyone know if "poodle wool" would have the same effect?
The example of fence building was also interesting to see.
I also liked the bit they said about having a regular group that have monthly work bees at different farms. That really demonstrates the benefits of developing the "community" aspect of permaculture.

At the least, this is telling you your ash trees tolerate jugalone just fine, though this has likely already been documented. They are likely symbiotic to some extent if the walnut tolerates the ash tree and vice versa. If the ash is not shading out the leaves of the walnut, which it seems doubtful it ever would, it will not harm the production of a mature walnut in the long run. It may interfere with harvest, being in they way of the harvesters. However the larger tree with the larger photosynthetic area on its leaves will generally benefit long term from the nutrient cycling and accumulation of its understory, and in times of water stress the larger tree with the more powerful transpiration powered vacuum can literally pull the water out of smaller trees that have a weaker vacuum with their smaller photosynthetic area. They can also outcompete them for nutrients and sugars with greater carbohydrate and other root exudate production. It’s a bit like economics, where big corporations benefit in the aggregate from a diversified array of small businesses during good times, and in tough times they can buy them out with greater capital reserves and then profit greatly from their buying low when the macro economy recovers.

I have a lot of issues with saplings myself. I have a lot of great fields, but being in the most heavily forested state in the nation, that forest wants to encroach upon my fields.

Not on my watch! My ancestors worked hard to make these fields...well...fields, and I have every intention of stopping the forest at the rock walls.

I have a pot bellied stove, so instead of taking big trees and making them little again for making firewood, I am working on a process to take the saplings I do not want, and burn them instead. The problem is, there are so many of them. So my plan is to make a 100% mechanized method of collecting the saplings I need to heat my home every year.

The first part was making a feller-buncher so I do not have to manually cut, then load saplings onto my log trailer. The second step I have not done yet, and that is to make a firewood chunker. I my case, saplings (4 inch or less) could be used in my pot bellied stove, but they could also be used in a rocket mas heater as well. I figured it up one time and came to the conclusion I need about 500 saplings per year for the amount of heat I need to heat my home.

Travis Johnson wrote:

The second step I have not done yet, and that is to make a firewood chunker.

When I read this, it sounded interesting, but it my situation, the short length of the  "chunks" would be a nuisance. Is there a similar tool out there that would cut 3-4 inch diameter wood into "stove length" (16")? Using a chainsaw to cut it to length seems dangerous. Building a better sawbuck might help, but small stuff seems so much more inclined to skitter around than bigger stuff.