New management options in chestnut coppices: an evaluation on ecological bases
Introduction
Chestnut (Castanea sativa Miller) represents one of the most important broad-leaved plants in the Mediterranean Basin and is still a valuable resource for many Mediterranean mountainous areas, even though both socio-economical changes and pathologies markedly reduced the importance it had till the first decades of this century.
Presently, the coexistence of large areas, both in abandonment and under traditional coppice system raises a lot of questions about management and forest policy of chestnut woods. On one hand, it has been highlighted that both, intensive exploitation and complete abandonment produce dysfunction at different levels such as bio-geochemical cycles, biological diversity and landscape patterns (Romane and Houssard, 1995). On the other hand, besides the consolidated interests for chestnut coppice assortments, the demand for high-quality wood increased consistently in the last few years, bringing about an increased interest towards chestnut stands as well. But high-quality wood production cannot be achieved with the traditional short-rotation coppice, aimed at the production of poles and posts, or with the complete abandonment of silviculture. All these aspects have led to reconsider the management of chestnut woods: new management systems as the adoption of long rotation periods or the conversion into high forest in order to produce sawlogs have recently been adopted evermore frequently, beside the traditional coppice system with short rotation periods (Bourgoise, 1987, Amorini et al., 1998). They imply the choice of long rotation periods (30–50 years) necessary to produce sawlogs, and periodical thinnings, which, as a consequence of the ecological characteristics of the species and of technical and economical aspects, should be mainly low and heavy. This last element discriminates the system from the others proposed in the past (Patrone, 1936) and is characterised by frequent and low, light thinning. Although the interest for these new management options was emphasised even by the recent guidelines on forest policy, which suggest reconsidering management systems based on an over-exploitation of forest natural resources and adopting systems which take into account natural ecological processes (Anonymous, 1992, Lust, 1995), the topic has not been investigated in detail.
The objective of this paper is to contribute to an evaluation of these new management options in chestnut coppices and of how much they represent a valid alternative from a bio-ecological point of view to the traditional coppice system. The consequences of long rotation periods and heavy thinning on chestnut coppice stands were analyzed while paying special attention to indexes such as aboveground biomass, litter production, stand growth efficiency and to responses at canopy cover level in terms of leaf area index (LAI), amount of gaps and of light transmitted to ground. The importance of these variables in describing the ‘quality’ of an ecosystem and as good indicators of tree and stand functional status has already been stressed (Waring et al., 1980, Romane, 1995). In addition, they are strongly affected by management options and silvicultural practices which modify, according to different goals, not only the spatial distribution of the trees and competition levels but also the aboveground biomass, its partitioning and the characteristics of canopy cover.
Section snippets
Materials and methods
The study area is located at S. Lorenzo, near Abbadia S. Salvadore (Siena, 42°53′N, 11°40′W) in the eastern slope of Monte Amiata at 850 m a.s.l. The site is on a South exposure and has a gentle slope. Monte Amiata (1738 m a.s.l., south-western Tuscany) is an important chestnut vegetation area where, in the past, woods were traditionally coppiced every 8–10 years to obtain poles and posts for mine activity. Climate is mountain-Mediterranean: mean annual rainfall and temperature are, respectively,
Results
A general analysis of the main dendrometrical variables showed similarity between the experimental plots within each typology, and a sustained growth of the coppice stands under both, NR and LR (Table 1). Volume and biomass mean annual increment in the control and thinned plots were 17.6 m3 ha−1 and 9.9 Mg ha−1 in the NR coppice and 12.8 m3 ha−1 and 6.8 Mg ha−1 in the LR coppice, respectively. With regards to the biomass of individual compartments, branch biomass in the LR coppice was twice that of NR
Discussion
A thorough analysis of the different ecological indexes (standing volume, biomass, mean and current annual increment, litter production and LAI) points out that these chestnut coppice stands are characterized by a high productivity. This aspect deserves to be emphasized because it is one of the main requirements for improving the chances of success of a management system different from the traditional exploitation by short rotations (Amorini et al., 1998). Indeed, steering the management of
Conclusions
The examined chestnut coppice stands were very productive and, therefore, matched the main requirement for a management steered to sawlogs production with the adoption of longer rotation periods. They reacted positively to longer rotation periods both, in terms of stand structure development and productivity. Productivity showed only a slight decrease, maintaining high values for a long time after the traditional rotation age; a marked decrease in tree and stand growth efficiency was not
Acknowledgements
I thank Umberto Cerofolini, Luigi Mencacci and Claudia Benvenuti for conducting the field and the laboratory work. This work received financial support from the UE DG XII, project ‘Dynamics and function of chestnut forest ecosystems in Mediterranean Europe. A biological approach for a sustainable development’ (CAST), Contract EV5V-CT94-0427.
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