Does management improve the state of chestnut (Castanea sativa L.) on Belasitsa Mountain, southwest Bulgaria?

Abstract

© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionFor many centuries European chestnut forests have been mostly managed as short rotation coppices and orchards for nut production (Bourgoise 1987, Lauteri et al. 2009). During the second half of the 20 th century chestnut cultivation substantially decreased because rural populations fell and the species became less important as a staple food. Chestnut trees also sustained substantial damage from chestnut blight caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica (Murrill) Barr (Cutini 2001, Pividori et al. 2004 and from ink-disease caused by Phytopthora spp. Abandoned open-structured chestnut stands and coppices have both been partially replaced by climax communities associated with various Quercus or Fagus species (Paci 1992, Romane et al. 1995, Pridnya et al. 1996, Gallardo-Lancho 2001, Lushaj & Tabaku 2009, Pezzi et al. 2009).In recent years, biological control of chestnut blight and the natural spread of hypovirulence throughout most of Europe (Milgroom & Cortesi 2004) allowed chestnut to be again a viable species for wood production. The increasing demand for high-quality wood production has fostered a discussion about identifying appropriate management techniques to assure sustainable forest management for sawlog production (Heiniger & Rigling 1994, Amorini et al. 1997, Manetti et al. 2009). As a result, the production of high-value chestnut timber is now being enhanced in some parts of Europe where growing conditions are appropriate ). However, this was mainly achieved by extending the rotation of coppices up to 30 or 50 years rather than by management of chestnut in high forests originating from seed (Bourgoise 1987, Amorini et al. 2000. Currently, there are few experiments into how chestnut regenerates and grows under high-forest silvicultural methods, even though these methods are extensively used in most mixed deciduous forests in Europe (Cutini 2001). Hence, little is known of how the behavioral patterns of chestnut could be managed to secure its future survival in species-rich mixed forests under a high-forest system.After a period of abandonment in the first half of the 20 th century, interest in the management of chestnut stands on the Belasitsa Mountain (southwest Bulgaria) rose again in the 1990s, as a consequence of the spread of the chestnut blight disease. The first documented identification of C. parasitica on Belasitsa Mountain was in 1993 (Petkov & Rossnev 2000). Management response was confined to the implementation of sanitation cuttings through the harvesting of trees with heavily damaged crowns (degree of damage > 60%). The first sanitation cuttings in chestnut-dominated and co-dominated stands on the mountain were carried out in 1989. More than 2700 m 3 of chestnut wood were harvested up to 1992. From 1993, the magnitude of wood harvested in sanitation cuttings substantially increased. To 2006 more than 30 000 m 3 of chestnut wood were harvested. Since 2006, the intensity of sanitation cuttings abruptly decreased and they were replaced by c...

Seed regeneration of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Miller) under different coppicing approaches

“…The chestnut tree is a light-demanding tree and thus hardly establishes by seed or develops under dense canopy and in the absence of sufficient solar radiation at ground level (Pinchot et al, 2017;Pridnya et al, 1996;Zlatanov et al, 2013). From a silvicultural point of view, it is however very important to enhance the seed regeneration rate on the long run in order to maintain a suitable stool density (i.e., by replacing dead stools) increasing the overall health conditions and timber quality of the coppice stands (Giudici and Zingg, 2005;Pividori et al, 2006;Zlatanov et al, 2015).…”