Why Fresh is Best When it Comes to Mulch by Linda Chalker-Scott on Garden Professors website, “Advancing the science of gardening and other stuff since 2009”. Feb 2021 article about using freshly cut wood chips as mulch around woody perennials, and how mulching perennials is different than mulching annual crops.
Some Uses of Woody Biomass in Gardening and Regenerative Agriculture , by Michael Pilarski, Friends of the Trees Society, and Global Earth Repair Foundation. February 6, 2020.
Jean Pain (1930-1981) was a French innovator who produced 100% of his energy needs from compost, using wood chips. Considered the pioneer of using wood chips, his waste products being quality compost. In these YouTube videos his system is explained: The Power of Compost, part 1 , and The Power of Compost, part 2 .
Ramial Chipped Wood: the Clue to a Sustainable Fertile Soil (pdf) Technology Transfer of Ramial Chipped Wood in the Environments of Market Gardening and Agriculture. “The technique of Ramial Chipped Wood Technique (RCW) is in fact the “technique of the forest”. This technique, developed by the team of Prof Lemieux, Laval University, is a ‘copy’ of the way the forest generates soils.” Originally from https://www.verdeterreprod.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Germain-2007-Ramial-Chipped-Wood-the-Clue-to-a-Sustainable-Fertile-Soil.pdf
In Praise of Chips 
is an article on Ramial Wood Chips by Tom Roberts. (Ramial wood chips are produced by chipping tree branches and brush from 4 inches in diameter on down.) Tom discusses how he uses them on his organic vegetable farm in central Maine. Once published in the MOF&G.
Using Ramial Chipped Wood to Improve Fertility in a Fruit Tree Nursery by Ann Currier in the Winter 2007-2008 MOF&G. “The farm where the research took place is OxBow Herbs and Heirlooms in northern Maine. With a mixed stand woodlot and 20 acres of cleared fields, the farm was out of production for 40 years. It now produces a diversity of greenhouse seedlings, perennial plants and ornamentals, vegetables and nursery trees (apple and pear trees, mostly).”
Too Many Wood Chips? by Will Bonsall in the Winter 2018-2019 MOF&G. “One can use enormous amounts of woody residues …, but would-be chip users voice two concerns: Chips obtained from roadside chipping crews can be too coarse for direct use, and the resins in chips from conifers – pine, spruce, hemlock, etc. – break down slowly and can acidify soil.”
Redefining Soil Fertility by Céline Caron in the Spring 2007 issue of MOF&G. Includes a glossary of terms relating to the use of RCW by one of the foremost collaborators in ramial chipped wood research. “Have you ever wondered how a forest can grow and reproduce with no addition of fertilizers or irrigation; without tree transplants; and how insects are controlled without pesticides? Natural forests thrive and regenerate without human intervention, fertilizers or biocides. The only sources of energy are the sun and water. The forest is a living machine working with living material, and from this living machine comes soil fertility. When we see the soil as a biological entity, we reverse the actual definition of soil fertility completely. Forest ecology must inspire and guide farmers around the world.”
“Céline Caron is an ecologist and Earth doctor. She is a long-time practitioner of organic agriculture in Quebec, a friend of rivers, wetlands, forest and soil, and simple living. She writes in both French and English.”
Ramial Chipped Wood – More Than “Wood Chips” by Céline Caron in the Fall 2015 issue of MOF&G. This may be one of the best summaries of how to use RCW. “Recently I listened to “Dr. Mercola and Courtney White Discuss Carbon Sequestration” (YouTube, Aug. 27, 2014; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSgroKuuJFA ). Both talked about incorporating wood chips into soil (with or without composting) and using them as mulch. Neither distinguished between wood chips and ramial wood chips. They obviously have not read my many articles about ramial wood chips published in The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener nor the research that has been done in Quebec over the last 35 years.”
Connecting with the Terrestrial Ecosphere by Céline Caron in the Spring 2006 issue of MOF&G. Thoughts on why we should move from egocentrism to ecocentrism. “Most of us spend our lives without really seeing, hearing, tasting and feeling the world in which we live, the world that has evolved for and with us. Many who are not involved in producing food can make links on a computer but not with the living world. Many complain when the weather is cold or rainy, but who thinks about the bees that cannot pollinate the flowers then; who notices the bumblebees who do keep working till the temperature reaches the freezing point?”
