Air Meadows - Food For Free Part 8 - Pollarding and Pruning Tree Fodder (Part 1)

'Air meadows' is the beautiful description for a multi millennial old tradition of feeding European livestock. How do we know this?  Well because in this form of silviculture, the standard way of growing trees for an optimum harvest was to pollard them and thus create a yearly plethora of thickly growing, thin leafy branches above browse height. Evidence of whole stands of trees pruned this way have been discovered dating from the Neolithic Period all over the continent and there still exist examples of ancient pollarded trees in parks common land and pre-Enclose Act hedgerows. It is very interesting to note that up until the beginning of the 20th century more tree hay, was cut, dried and stored for use in Europe than conventional (grass) hay. Furthermore, air meadows didn't just provide food, sheep in particular are known to self-medicate for internal parasites by using the tannins and other phenolic compounds found in leaves. So for free food and medicine, look to the sky.

Some time ago I made a film and wrote an article about using leaf fodder for poultry but it wasn't until an  interesting comment from Akın Çekinmez in Turkey asking if I had ideas on specific trees for sheep and goats, that I began to look into the history of sky meadows. This,  as opposed to the ad hoc pruning of hedges for our birds or grazing them on a 'self-service' basis. Of course with many of my poultry being good flyers and climbers they already have the option to forage up in the trees but I think it is more likely that they would rather I did the leg/ladder work and brought the greenery down to them! 

 

Pollarding? - Historically A Vexed Question

I have to admit right from the outset that I do not like pollarded trees, I find the practice ugly and quite frankly unsettling. Living in a country where every municipality pollards every tree, I can not fail to be effected by a Winter urban landscape of gnarled and tortured trees, raising their raw bare knuckles to the sky in supplication. Poetry aside however, this is a practice which has been documented in writing since Roman times and was used not only for the feeding of livestock but also for the silviculture of wood for fuel. In the coloured plate left: The illuminated page for February from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (1416); we can see a stand of pollarded trees, no doubt crucial for Winter heat and fodder for 'the flock in woolly fold'.  Witness the man in the blue coat, pollarding his trees, this was often done with an axe or billhook by the skillful practitioner. 

In opposition to this practice below left, in the background of the scene for 'April' witness a stand of trees, not yet in leaf, exhibiting to my mind the true ugliness of the pollard. It was perhaps this offence to the aesthetics of 19th Century England, as well as the need for trees for shipbulding both through increased warfare and trade, that caused the eventual demise of the practice in the country. Other factors involved were the concentration of land ownership, the various Enclosure Acts and the rise of coal as a major fuel source. Another two major causes were; the influence of the new Timber Trade  and the gathering sway of  celebrity Landscape Gardeners such as Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton, of whom Uvedale Price wrote in 1792:

'...he would deserve a statue if he could inspire Mr Pitt with such an aversion to (stripped elms) as to make him exert his great authority and eloquence to put an end to such a horrid practice’. 

Price argued that the ending of pollarding;

 ‘....would do more towards beautifying the face of England than all the sums that ever have, or will be laid out in improvements’

James Main writing in 1839 in his book 'The Forest Planter and Pruner's Assistant' argued that pollarding was akin to ‘mutilation’, ‘distortion’ and ‘bad taste’ and that ‘only natural disbranchement by wind or lapse of time’ could produce a natural shape that could be admired. Looking at some of the horrors of crown pollarding and terrible lopping attempts that disfigure the meadows near me, such as this once majestic oak, left, I'm afraid I have to agree!

As with all things down the ages and through to the present day, everyone had their own agenda from aesthetics, warfare and commerce to food and energy security and plain just staying alive.

It is true however, that in the urban, suburban and semi-rural landscape, pollards spring up like mushrooms and I can't say I find them particularly appetising. This in particular when contrasted with the surrounding beauty of naturally growing and expanding trees. 

 

Left is an example of such on the outskirts of a neighbouring small town.

Young trees like this are pollarded at under 19cm diameter, cutting into the sapwood. The exposed tissue will then callous over  to create a fist shape or 'boiling' making such trees most unsightly in Winter.

Pollarding Protocols

If you decide on pollarding, then there are certain guiding protocols that have been observed throughout the centuries for the best practices of this craft. It has to be said that, although slightly controversial with respect to certain tree species, such as elm, for example, the general consensus seems to be that correctly undertaken pollarding can extend the life of a tree, and thus its fodder and fuel production.

 

Fuel 

 

The picture above shows our local organic dairy farm pollarding oak trees grown within the farm bocages (Basse Normandy raised hedges) for fuel. This is chipped on site, with zero waste, for a wood biomass heater and the pollarding is done every 15 years, which is the traditional standard for fuel pollards in this part of Normandy. However, pollards for fuel depends and depended very much upon the type of tree cut and also, as the following evidence shows, upon the rules of the particular forest or land-owner. Dr Oliver Rackham, the Cambridge academic, in his book The Last Forest. The Story of Hatfield Forest published in London in 1989  used the evidence of tree-rings to show the differences in the pollarding cycles of the Essex forests: 

Epping Forest had a thirteen year cycle, 

Hatfield Forest's was between twelve and thirty-six years and

Hainault Forest between eighteen and twenty-five years.

 

Fodder

 

Pruning and pollarding for forage was/is often done on a yearly basis, although others promote longer pollarding cycles from 3 - 8 years. To avoid excessive wounding to a tree, easy healing and thus problems with fungus the advice is to cut branches that are less than 7.5 cm - 3" in diameter. It is also advised, to avoid die back to any one area of the tree, to prune/pollard the whole tree equally. 

Tree hay

The protocol for tree hay in Europe is to cut in full leaf - preferably from of end of June and through July, when the nutrient (including mineral) content in the leaves and twigs is at a maximum. Dried and stored these nutrients will remain within the tree hay to provide an excellent winter forage. I have never tried making and storing tree hay for poultry but will do so this Summer and will write that up as a further part to this fodder series.

In the Part 2, which you can find here, we will look at aspects of modern pollarding practice including nutrient values and examples of suitable fodder trees for different climates and spaces.

Thanks for dropping by and do feel free to share experiences or ask for further information in the comment section. If you have enjoyed this piece and found it useful think about sharing it with your family and friends, on social media and also maybe about joining this blog and/or subscribing to my Youtube channel or even supporting us on Patreon or

It all helps to keep me going!

 

 

Until next time, all the very best from sunny Normandie! 

Sue

 

© 2021 Sue Cross

 

REFERENCES:

Pollarding Trees: Changing Attitudes to a Traditional Land Management Practice in Britain 1600–1900

Online fodder tree database for Europe - Nutritional Values 

Tropical Forages List 

Fodder trees for improving livestock productivity and smallholder livelihoods in Africa 

James Main: The Forest Planter and Pruner's Assistant: being a practical treatise on the management of the native and exotic forest trees commonly cultivated in Great Britain..  

 

Fodder Trees of the Nepal Hills 

 

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