Charlois is France’s leading oak producer in terms of volume (nearly 10% of the total volume of French oak sold each year), as well as the undisputed leader in the French stavewood market. Due to the highly selective quality criteria applied to stave production, only half of the volume purchased is used for stave milling.
Stave-wood quality logs meet very precise quality criteria: the trees are over 150 years old, they have grown slowly, and their trunks are straight and large-diameter, with no knots or pimples. And only the heartwood is used to make stavewood from these stavewood-quality logs, which are cut into logs and split into quarters. The bark, sapwood and heartwood, which account for 80% of the volume, become stavewood by-products to be exploited.
The fact that this raw material is so rare* encourages us to optimize the use of all parts of the tree on a daily basis. Oaks that are not used to produce stavewood can be divided into two parts. The highest quality, closest to stave-wood quality, is used internally to make railway sleepers, oak products for the wine industry or oak shingles. The off-cuts of these products (bark, edgings, sawdust, etc.), known as “related”, are valorized externally, as fuel, chipboard, etc.
As for the tree crown, which remains in the forest, the largest branches are cut into firewood and the remaining small branches are left in place to make a useful contribution to humus enrichment and biodiversity by providing shelter for insects and mushrooms.
- * In France, staves account for an average of 1% of the annual production volume of sawn timber, wood under rails and staves (hardwood) and 12% of its value. It can also be estimated that around 3% of the oak harvested each year in France is of merrain quality.
Photography: © Christophe Deschanel
