Baubuche

Increase of the proportion of valuable beech wood and optimizing assessment of the quality of living beech trees by terrestrial laser scanning.

This research project investigates the possibilities for increasing the amount of beech wood to be used for construction. For this purpose two research approaches are applied:

1. Increasing the share of beech wood that can be used for construction purposes.

Through silvicultural measures the structure of forests and the architecture of individual trees and their growth can be controlled and modified. In growth models the natural pruning and the diameter growth of the trees can be simulated and guidelines for enhancing the share of construction wood can be developed. A high share of straight stems, free of branches is wanted. Moreover other quality criteria such as little spiral grain or twisted stems need to be considered. The importance of the different quality criteria is valued in cooperation with the project „Wandelbarer Holzhybrid“ (Project number: 28W-K-3-137-03).

2. Optimizing the utilization oriented cutting regime with the help of adequate inventory tools.

For planning the product oriented cutting regime forest inventory methods are applied, which allow a precise assessment of tree dimension, straightness, twisted stems and other quality parameters when trees are still growing in the forest. The use of terrestrial laser scanning offers the needed information.

The two approaches allow an optimization of beech management in order to provide a high amount of beech construction wood. Various management options and their impacts on quantity and quality of the harvested assortments are calculated and economically analyzed. Based on these results simply to apply management recommendations are developed, which may optimize beech wood management.

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