mixed stands

As a part of tender from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Germany) for „Sustainable forestry in Russia“ a research project of the Institute of Silviculture and Forest protection (Chair of silviculture) TU Dresden with Russian partners from Republic Tatarstan is benefited since summer 2015. The project "Optimized establishment of mixed stands of pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) and small-leaved lime (Tilia cordata)" under the direction of Prof. Dr. Sven Wagner is focused on the optimization of the plant numbers for the plantation establishment with pedunculate oak and small-leaved lime in the Republic Tatarstan (Russia).
In Tatarstan the forest association with oak and lime tree reaches its boundaries of natural areas. The pedunculate oak is ecological as well as economical particularly valuable. However in connection with ecological boundary conditions the seed formation of oak is a rare event in this region. In connection with the ambitious afforestation plans of the forest colleagues from Tatarstan, a shortage of planting material of pedunculate oak is foreseeable in the future. One opportunity to solve this problem is the reduction of the oak plant number per hectare. This research project shall clarify, if a consequently decrease in oak plant quality can be compensated by addition of small-leaved lime trees in those plantations, which are abounding available in the Tatarstan region. Furthermore, chronosequence researches, which explain the relation between plant density and tree quality parameters are carried out to derivate optimal plant densities and planting schemes.
Recommendations for plant densities during plantation establishment, as well as the realization of Nelder trials should lay the foundation for future increase of forest land in Tatarstan.