Logan Hyde

  Willow is one of my favorites. With that said I would only plant it if I had a use for it. I use mine as rabbit fodder. I always need more trees. The hybrid willow is so fast growing it will make your jaw drop. The cuttings make great fast living fences and it's just a beautiful tree. I pollard all my willows so I get long straight shoots. They are also great for building the framework for chinampas.

Yes! Yes! And yes!

Gray Henon wrote:

Logan Hyde wrote:That's an excellent use for privet. Do you know if all livestock can eat it? I have fed it to goats before but I have rabbits now. I also wonder what the protein content and nutritional facts are of privet.

Can’t say much about other livestock.  Nutrition must be good, judging by the way they gobble it up!  A forage analysis would be interesting.  Our state extension office does them for a nominal charge, maybe yours does, too?

Excellent idea. I never thought of that.

That's an excellent use for privet. Do you know if all livestock can eat it? I have fed it to goats before but I have rabbits now. I also wonder what the protein content and nutritional facts are of privet.

Hello everyone Logan here from Joppa AL. Long time permie just discovered this thread. I have 9 acres looking to homestead with all the animal and veggie bits but have to finish my house first. So cool to see that there are other permies so local.

    Not to derail all the awesome talk of american chestnut but here are some pictures of a white iak that I coppiced. This is after one growing season. For reference I am 6ft tall. It is amazing what an established stump can produce. I kept 5 shoots to do a 5 year rotation on cutting them for firewood. Unfortunately the county foiled my plans. It is close to a gravel road. I have plans to coppice some further into the property. It would be awesome to have some american chestnut to coppice as well as some black locust for pollards

Can't wait for this!!!

    I think it would work fine but you would have to get large logs that are all close to the same diameter. The poles allow you to use all different sizes.

    So I was listening to one of Paul's podcasts and he said that he theorized that the reason that pine forest have such acidic soils is because pines suck up all the calcium. So I would just about bet that if you were to use green pine you would have an alkaline hugel and a more neutral one if you used rotting pine. I have thought the same thing because I have a lot of pine rotting on my property. Hope this helps and if I am wrong hopefully Paul will elaborate on the subject in future podcasts.