Willow

Grow Willow

Short rotation coppice (Willow) involves planting fast growing, high yielding tree species for biomass production with three year harvest intervals. Willow produces the highest yield of biomass compared to other woody biomass crops. Yields of up to 16 tonnes of oven-dried material can be grown per ha. per year with a minimum of inputs and labour. This material is then used as a furnace fuel, with the environmental benefit of being carbon neutral (i.e. the amount of carbon absorbed from atmosphere during growth is equal to the amount of carbon released on combustion), or the wood chip can be used for a variety of other uses, e.g. animal bedding, mulch etc.

Benefits

The following are the benefits of growing willow:

Environmentally friendly

SRC willow is a renewable bio-fuel, which at the same time gives protection and food for wildlife. The soil is covered by the crop all year round, which allows efficient nutrient uptake, SRC willow is therefore often used as vegetation filters for treating waste water.

Land use

SRC willow is excellent on soils not suitable for high yielding grass or cereal production. With SRC willow on parts of the land you can optimise your use of the arable soils.

Labour input

Plant once only and harvest a number of times without further planting. An SRC willow plantation requires low inputs of labour, compared to other crops. You don’t need to own machinery, which means low investment costs.

Profitable

Farmers can make a reasonable return from their land from growing willow (see costs and returns below).

Technical Information

- Download Willow Agronomy word document
- Download Estimated Farmer Costings for growing Willow on Contract xls file
- Download Willow as a_Fuel pdf document

Willow Case Study

Read a short case study on a farmer growing willow.