Working Week

We were starting to set up a really interesting new experiment this week, a part of which aims to trial a range of novel drain blocking techniques for use on blanket bog. The main idea behind the trial is to try and develop techniques that are quicker to use than conventional peat dams, whilst at the same time being effective at blocking drains which have oxidised cross sections (through the…

For several months this spring our staff have been working incredibly hard to undertake a complete survey of all Forest Enterprise Scotland (FES) re-stocking sites (almost 400!). It certainly gets us around the country. The survey is based on FC’s Nearest Neighbour method of assessing deer damage. The work is hard to undertake, as it is all based on newly felled sites that have been then been mounded ready for…

We designed a new native woodland for a windfarm in Easter Ross several years ago. The design was informed by the Ecological Site Classification (ESC) model developed by Forest Research (FR). We recently returned to have a look at its progress. The site is now finally beginning to look like a woodland, after some early difficulties with deer browsing impact despite the site being fully deer fenced. It’s such a…