[spandit]

I'm hoping to grow and sell willow cuttings once I get it established but was wondering how best to cut the bits to length? Wondering if some sort of guillotine would do it as cutting with secateurs is going to be tiring and hitting with an axe is too inaccurate... Chainsaw would mess the ends up, I think...

Looked at one site and if I could sell 4 acres of whips at their prices, I'd make £380,000 a year...

[pgkevet]

Powered circular saw on a bench setup with a distance guage and do them in bundles?? - a longer bed version of a firewood log sawing bench...
You can get pto versions of similar too

[spandit]

That could work... I'm still astonished that a 25cm stick of willow sells for 50p in places... I wonder how well it would sell at the roadside?

[suziequeue]

Unbelievable!!!


We got 25 of five different varieties a couple of years ago for basket weaving and S. viminalis for hurdles.


Since then we've just chopped them and stuck them in the ground.


Planted 150 in an afternoon here in January but it is for our own personal use.


For basket weaving, the cost is not so much for the growing and cutting as for the processing. Most people want buff which is a pain to process on a small scale.

[FiB]

when you buy cuttings  it is usual to have the top end straight cut and the bottom 'slyped' (cut at an angle) so that they poke in the ground easy and you can help your purchasers know which way is optimal in your planting and care instructions.  Loppers or bill hook are the way most do I think....Once you have cut and processed a few hundred (I cant imagine an acre!!), labled, bundled and posted off with instructions, I expect you will thing 50p is too little!  I buy in still for my living willow structures and its a lot cheaper (because they have just been graded and bundled, not cut into 12 inch lengths). Growing and grading for basketry is an art and I'm not sure I'll ever get stuff good enough (long and thin) from mine, still trying!!!

[suziequeue]

I coppice mine at hip height so I don't have to bend down to cut them.


For the first couple of years I have regularly sloughed off the side shoots on the trunk area.


Now they all just have little top knots and each trunk produces about 15 whips which is fine for me.

[hughesy]

Looked at one site and if I could sell 4 acres of whips at their prices, I'd make £380,000 a year...

Hehe but you know that's not going to happen, don't you? 

[spandit]

Looked at one site and if I could sell 4 acres of whips at their prices, I'd make £380,000 a year...

Hehe but you know that's not going to happen, don't you? 

If I sold it for 50p a cutting, I'd make nearly £3million... Jetranger or Gazelle?  

[hughesy]

Think of the extra profit if you made the cuttings just a couple of inches shorter. 

[Bramblecot]

  You lot make me laugh.  Thanks for cheering me up after a day in the office.

[spandit]

Just to register the term, my wife informs me we're going to be "willionaires"