COST Action E 52 - vTI - Bund.de

Huge clearcuts were practiced to provide timber in historical times. At present, the natural
regeneration of beech stands dominates as a silvicultural technique in Austria. The classical method
is shelterwood cutting of an area between one to three hectares (preparation cutting, seed cutting,
several release cuttings and the final cut). The final cut is undertaken, if the regeneration covers most
of the area of the stand and the height of young plants reaches 30 to 60 cm (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Beech recruitment during the final stage of shelter cut (S. Spinka, 2010)
The treatment goal for the young stand phase is to achieve a dense, homogenous thicket with a high
number of well-formed trees at adequate spacing. Sometimes weeding (reducing competitive shrub
and tree species) is necessary. The cleaning of the young stands, processed at a height frame of three
to six (ten) metres top height, should eliminate wolf trees (forked dominant and co-dominant trees;
negative selection). Generally, there are discussions amongst practitioners about the necessity of
treatments (intensity, type) in this early stand phase. Therefore treatments are neglected in most of
the young stands in Austria. The choice of crop trees as well as the selective thinning, starts at a top
height of fifteen to eighteen metres (branch free bottom log of eight to twelve metres) and is already
current practice in Austria (Fig. 2). In the second half of the rotation cycle, repeated increment
thinning is obligatory up to 20 years before starting the shelterwood cutting.
Over the last two decades alternate silvicultural methods (shelterwood group selection system, target
diameter harvesting concept) were discussed and also practised in few Austrian forest enterprises.
The main topic of the discussion is the quality development of the stands, in particular of the young
stands, which grow up from shelterwood group regeneration.
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