What do people know about willow?
We've a fair bit growing around and about the place but none in the farmed areas which stock can access for browse. So I cut a bit the other week to try on the sheep and it was all gone within the hour. So assuming it was good for them (does anyone know what the nutrient profile of willow is?) and with silage gathered in I've started thinking how do we provide a bit more diversity in the winter ration when the opportunity for browsing the hedges, edges and forces to top up micronutrients disappears over winter. So was going to cut alot of the willow and dry it as tree hay and supplement the winter grazing and silage with it.
However will be relatively small amounts so just wondering whether this is at all worthwhile or a complete time waster. A better plan I imagine would be to have the willow in our hedges for stock to access themselves and have started planting some saplings to that effect.
I am hoping this will also help inform our agroforestry planting plan when EFS opens again.
Yes 25 -30 years ago Ash and Sycamore
Sheep grazing all way through from year 1, but with very little sunlight in summer they were not so anxious I assume less sugar in plants, but still to this day good growth.
Have been thinning over the last 10 years enough to keep 3 households in firewood but now starting to lose some with Ash die back.
I planted on land not really for the plough and am not in favour of good farm land, ie good grassland or arable, being taken out for trees. There is plenty of rocky areas in NI suitable and where I found these paddocks usful was in winter for feeding silage as the roots were near the top keeping the pasture hard.
I would recommend different species of trees.