Carbon Farming

Larch as a long term crop

Siberian Larch is in the same genus as our native tamarack, but is more tolerant of a wide variety of soil and moisture regimes. If larch were planted on 8 foot spacing, you would get about 600 per acre. Grow until you have a butt diameter of about 6".

Larch wood is highly resistant to decay, especially the heart wood. Remove ¾ of the trees, selling them as preservative-free fence posts. This leaves the remaining trees on 16 foot grid. Grow these until 12-16 inches in diameter. Harvest them for flooring.

This is a long term project, taking about 40 years. While it is in place, the farm may be able to recoup all operating costs for that unit by selling carbon credits.

As a different variation of this, plant 3/4 larch and 1/4 black walnut. Your initial harvest takes the adjacent squares of the walnuts, but leaves the diagonal ones.

Year 1: You have a grid that looks like this:

L W L W L W L W L W L W
L L L L L L L L L L L L
L W L W L W L W L W L W
L L L L L L L L L L L L
L W L W L W L W L W L W
L L L L L L L L L L L L
L W L W L W L W L W L W
L L L L L L L L L L L L
L W L W L W L W L W L W
L L L L L L L L L L L L

Once the larch are crowding/shading the walnut, you take your first cut for organic fence posts or firewood.

  W   W   W   W   W   W
L   L   L   L   L   L  
  W   W   W   W   W   W
L   L   L   L   L   L  
  W   W   W   W   W   W
L   L   L   L   L   L  
  W   W   W   W   W   W
L   L   L   L   L   L  
  W   W   W   W   W   W
L   L   L   L   L   L  
  W   W   W   W   W   W
L   L   L   L   L   L

The larch grow much faster than the walnut. This pushes the walnut to grow straight with most of their growth being in the top. Result is a tall straight trunk for peeling.

Maintenance: Twice yearly weed control in the aisles. Remove side branches from bottom half of the walnut trees every few years. (Bottom half of the tree.)

This should be done in a fairly moist area. There is merit in having a band of shelterbelt poplar on the north and west sides to drift in snow.

Consider watering for the first 3 years, then planting the bare earth to a low water use low nutrient use plant such as white clover.

Typical Pine

Lodgepole Pine in our front yard.

Got something to say? Email me: sfinfo@sherwoods-forests.com

Interesting? Share this page. Share

Want to talk right now? Talk to me: (8 am to 8 pm only, please) 1-780-848-2548

Back to Top

Sherwood's Forests is located about 75 km southwest of Edmonton, Alberta. Please refer to the map on our Contact page for directions.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

Winston Churchill

Larch as a long term crop

Back to Top

Copyright © 2008 - 2018 S. G. Botsford