Rural Payments and Services

To create conifer woodlands on land that is suitable for timber production and that is accessible for timber transport (including links to suitable public roads).

This option is aimed at planting conifer species other than Sitka spruce.

You must meet all eligibility criteria listed in the Woodland Creation page and:

• you must comply with the UK Forestry Standard
• the minimum planting width is 15 metres
• the minimum block size is two hectares in any one year.
• you must use at least two conifer species, e.g. Scots pine, douglas fir, Norway spruce and larch
• your application must meet the species composition criteria in the table below

Composition of diverse conifer woodland
Item	Minimum (per cent)	Maximum (per cent)	Minimum stocking density on the planted area at year five (per hectare)
Main conifer species [1]	40	75	2500
Other conifer species [1]	10	40	2500
Native broadleaves or shrubs	5	10	1100
Designed open ground [2]	0	10	n/a
[1] An intimate mixture of conifers is allowed but the choice of species must meet the requirements of 'species selection'. [2] You must refer to the designed open ground guidance on the Forestry Commission Scotland Technical Support page to see how designed open ground will apply to your application. For example additional open ground, in excess of the specified percentage, may be permissible depending on the specifics of the site, but will not be eligible for grant support.

Please note that in order to achieve 100 per cent from the table above you will not be able to select all minimum or all of the maximum values.

Species selection

As an initial first step in determining whether or not the site is climatically suitable, you should view the Forestry Grant Scheme (2014–2020) Site Suitability folder on the Forestry Commission Scotland Map Viewer page.

Any applications that are not shown as being climatically suitable will only be considered if you can clearly demonstrate that the site is suitable for the chosen species of trees, for example where there is localised shelter in an otherwise exposed location.

As per the eligibility criteria of the Woodland Creation general guidance the tree species must be 'suitable' or 'very suitable' to the site and have the capacity to achieve the following minimum average yield classes across the application area:

• yield class 8 for Scots pine and larch
• yield class 12 for Norway spruce, Douglas fir, western red cedar and other conifer species