BioMatNet Item: FAIR-CT95-0823 - New Silvicultural alternatives in young oak high forests. Consequences on high quality timber production

FAIR-CT95-0823
New Silvicultural alternatives in young oak high forests. Consequences on high quality timber production

Contacts

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FAIR Area 1.3 - Forestry-Wood Chain : Forestry : Solid Wood Products : Wood (Lignocellulose)

	Type of Project	Shared Cost
	Contract No	FAIR-CT95-0823
	Total Cost	1,463,880 ECU
	EC Contribution	1,200,000 ECU
	Start Date	01/01/1996
	Duration	48 months

New silvicultural alternatives in young oak high forests: consequences on high quality timber production

Objectives

Silvicultural practices applied in young stands of white European oaks differ greatly from country to country and production costs are high. Links with the quality of the wood harvested at the end of the revolution are not sufficiently considered.

The main objective is to specify the optimal silvicultural practices to be applied in stands of Quercus petraea (primarily) and Quercus robur (secondarily) of less than 15m of height.

Novel silvicultural alternatives sought in this project aim to reduce the costs, to concentrate the inputs on better selected phenotypes and to speed up their vertical and radial growth. There is a great need for basic knowledge, both concerning developmental features, in order to better investigate the natural phenotypic variability, and as well as wood properties. This fundamental research forms the first sub-objective. The rotation of Quercus is long, thus modelling and simulation tools will be useful to test the effect on harvested timber of such innovative silviculture alternatives performed in young stands. The creation of these tools constitutes the second sub-objective. These tools will be: 1. a growth and timber quality model; 2. end-user oriented wood properties models; and 3. decision support tools available to forest managers and allowing them to see the consequences on the production of the innovative alternatives they wish to apply.

Technical Approach

The project is divided into four main tasks:

Development at young stage including architectural sequence, epicormics, responses to light, effects of silvicultural practices already applied in experimental plots.

Radial growth determinism, growth and timber modelling including crown behaviour and radial growth as well as investigations addressing the creation of a distance dependent tree model of growth and timber volume.
Wood properties, technological behaviour and frost-cracks including:

the statistical analysis and modelling of internal structure, basic wood properties and anatomy
the physical modelling of diffusivity and shrinkage (with special application to frost-cracks)
the statistical analysis of the effect of growth conditions, anatomy and wood properties on drying behaviour of solid wood and on quality of veneers

3D simulation and software.

Expected Results

With the results gained, the project will provide:

basic knowledge on aspects of oak development and oak wood properties
advice to the foresters concerning the silvicultural practices to be applied in young stands
specification of the wood provided to industry and coming from stands where a innovative silviculture has been applied in the young stages, in terms of basic wood properties, the tendency to form frost cracks and behaviour during and after drying

Measurement of lowest living branches
in order to establish a model of sessile oak

Device built to investigate the differential behaviour of solid wood with changing moisture content by accurately measuring 3D-deformation of a mesh drawn at the surface of small boards. The device consists of an image analyser coupled with two motorised axes to obtain the plane coordinates and a displacement sensor to get the third coordinate.

Typical view of an experimental plot. Small trees in the foreground due to low nutrition conditions, larger trees in the background under better site conditions.

Dense plantation of 22 year-old sessile Oak trees in north-west Germany.

Device built to investigate the differential behaviour of solid wood with changing moisture content by accurately measuring 3D-deformation of a mesh drawn at the surface of commercial size boards (2 metre long). The device consists of an image analyser coupled with two motorised axes to obtain the plane coordinates and a displacement sensor to get the third coordinate.

Contacts

Coordinator

Dr Francis COLIN / Unit de Recherches Croissance Centre de Rech Forestires Champenoux / FRANCE

EC Scientific Officer

Alexandros ARABATZIS / European Commission DG Research Theme 1 Key Action 5.3 / BELGIUM

Participant