September will see a significant quantity of timber coming to the market from Japanese larch trees felled by Forestry Commission Wales due to the outbreak of ramorum disease.
The timber will be sold via Forestry Commission Wales’s online E-sales system on Wednesday 7 September and in further sales in November 2011 and January 2012.
Forestry Commission Wales is felling many more Japanese larch trees than normal in order to manage the outbreak of ramorum.
“However, we have adjusted the overall volume of these trees harvested in Wales so that we can meet our annual production target of 770,000m³ which is set at a level we can sustain in the longer term,” said Craig Sinclair, production manager from Forestry Commission Wales’s harvesting and marketing team.
Last year, 876ha of Japanese larch trees were found to be infected by ramorum disease in Wales for the first time.
Initial findings from this year’s surveys of woodlands by Forestry Commission Wales indicate that this fatal tree disease has infected a further 227ha in Wales.
