5 Weeks old and 6" growth!!

The healthier trees are now showing approx. 6 inches of growth in the top 3-4 shoots that we left on the stems. All other shoots were stripped off when approx. 1" long, although I did snap off a couple this week, and it was easier when approx. 2" long, so next year I'll leave them a little longer before stripping the lower shoots.

A few plants have something eating the leaves, not sure what it is yet. more investigating to do. Looks to be an insect of some kind as there are holes developing in the middle of the leaves.

3 Weeks in the ground.....

Every one of the 200 whips have budded to some extent. Above are images of the most healthy plants. Buds are upto 5cm long.

As I'm planning to grow these for firewood/logs, I've stripped all buds from the stems except for the top 7-10cm . This leaves 2-4 buds per plant. Seems this encourages all the energy to go into these ones rather than trying to grow 20 or so along the length of the stem.

I lifted the rabbit guards up, but not off the stems and stripped the buds by hand. that way I could drop the guards back down without damaging the top buds.