Dimitrios KOUTSIANITIS, Elias VOULGARIDIS, Andromachi MITANI

Wood production potential of beech Fagus sylvatica L. from natural forests in West Central Greece

Beech is an important tree species in natural and managed forests in Europe. Beech natural forests in Greece have a great ecological and economic importance and represent a very valuable species with respect to its potential of wood production and utilization. The aim of this work was to analyze the wood production potential of beech Fagus sylvatica L. natural forests on a quantitative and qualitative basis with respect to the forest site quality conditions. For this analysis, the wood production potential of 228 beech trees growing under different site qualities at the Aspropotamos forest district, Trikala, western-central Greece, was evaluated. For the quality grading of 787 produced beech logs, the EN 1316-1:1997 CEN standard was employed. The results showed that there is a very good potential of both quantitative and qualitative wood production in the natural beech forest as well as that the site quality has an influence on quantity and quality of wood production. It was recorded that beech trees grown under the better site quality, have attained the highest mean ring increment and produced the highest quantities of wood. Particularly, higher production and better quality of beech wood was produced in the better site quality, while in the inferior site quality the quantity of round wood produced was less and the quality was inferior

Keywords:

beech wood production, quality of wood, site quality,

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