In Australia we really need to get back to our European roots of coppiced forest systems.
As Darren Doherty states, we push out the stump after we cut the tree, when the eucalypts coppice beautifully.
Ben Law, author of The Woodland Way, also talks about the various products that come from a coppiced forest in England.
In my travels to Morocco, I have seen quite clearly the value of coppicing, where there are eucalyptus trees coppiced about every five years for firewood, simple structures and formwork props for construction, just to name a few uses.
Eucalyptus oil that we all know so well comes from a coppice system. In my childhood my father cut and distilled eucalyptus oil in a four year coppice rotation — the same as his father and his father did, so you can see how perpetual this system is.
So it is in my opinion we really need to examine this behaviour, and hopefully this article can help you get a better understanding of the value of coppicing and maintaining the structure and services of a forest while having a continuous harvest of varying products, instead of one harvest every 30+ years and clear-felling the lot, only to replant.
Of course there is the argument that coppiced trees are of a lesser quality, due to the un-proportioned root mass, making the tree grow too fast and having less density in the wood, but as any carpenter in Australia would admit, the pine from plantations we use for our home constructions is rubbish.
Note site history: My father cut mill logs off this site some 40+ years ago and my uncle cut mine props off this site some 25+ years ago. Nearly all the trees that you can see in this picture have been coppiced.
I like to describe pruning as being like steering traffic — you’re just directing energy flows, choosing what to keep and favour.