Silviculture of temperate forests, 15 credits

Objective:
The objective of the course is to provide students a comprehensive understanding of silvicultural principles and practices for the sustainable management of temperate forests. The course emphasizes and demonstrates scientific knowledge, derived from long-term field experiments and other empirical investigations, as a solid foundation for silviculture. Throughout the students will be presented to and discuss contrasting objective-oriented silvicultural practices and paradigms. These include even-aged plantation forestry, continuous cover forestry, close-to-nature forestry, multifunctional forestry, forestry for high-quality timber production, urban forestry, restoration forestry and historical management approaches. The course emphasizes nature-based forestry practices.

After completing the course, the student should be able to demonstrate knowledge, skills and competence as follows:
1. Evaluate alternative silvicultural strategies and their application,
2. Apply silvicultural principles to problem solving in forestry practice and at the forest policy level,
3. Identify and communicate compromise solutions to conflicts over the application of alternative silvicultural practices,
4. Implement silvicultural practices in different forest settings depending on management objective,
5. Quantify the effects of silvicultural practices to understand their limitations with regard to human utilisation and the sustainable use of temperate forests.

Content
- Brief overview of temperate forest ecosystems, site types, forest development types and major tree species (bio-geography, vegetation history, forest ecology, anthropogenic influences / the role of pine, spruce, fir, oak, beech, ash, maples, poplar and other tree species in temperate forest ecosystems).
- Silviculture as a means of achieving management objectives and a basis for sustainable forest management.
- The silvicultural practices of regeneration, tending and harvesting.
- Forest production and long-term productivity.
- Regeneration and afforestation (natural regeneration, direct seeding, planting, site preparation, choice of species, managing game, rodents, weed, nutrition, fertilizers and other biotic and abiotic factors).
- Managing forest productivity, stand density and wood quality (major determinants of forest productivity, initial spacing, thinning regime, harvesting operations, pruning, modelling effects of site, species, stand density and forest type, planning of operations at strategic and tactical level, implementation of operations and quality assurance).
- The layout and design of managed forests (sustained yield, risk management, aesthetics, forest recreation).
- The protective functions of forests (erosion, water, deadwood, biodiversity, cultural remains, amenity values).
- Management of forest health (biotic and abiotic factors, climate change).
- Classical silvicultural systems in a contemporary context (objective-oriented and site-specific silviculture, coppice and high forest systems / clearcutting, shelterwood systems, selection systems, conversion / intercropping / the ’normal forest’ concept vs. nature-based silviculture and near-natural forest development).
- Silvicultural practices of regeneration, tending and harvesting for major forest production systems and forest development types, including relevant species of the following conifer and hardwood genera: Abies, Chamaecyparis, Larix, Picea, Pinus, Pseudotsuga, Thuja, Tsuga, and Acer, Alnus, Betula, Carpinus, Castanea, Fagus, Fraxinus, Juglans, Malus, Populus, Pyrus, Prunus, Quercus, Robinia, Sorbus, Tilia, Ulmus.
- Site mapping for site-specific silviculture.
- Site-specific silviculture on sensitive sites such as mountain slopes, wetlands, heathland, inland sands, coastal dune fields and land reclamation sites.
- Adjusting silviculture to forest policy demands, technologies available for forest operations, and administrative practices, illustrated by case-studies on certification, forest conservation, and bioenergy.