Management of upland native woodlands

 

Foresty Commission programme manager:	Helen McKay
Research contact and location:	Forest Management Division, Forest Research

This programme is concerned with the management of native woodland types in upland areas of Britain - pinewoods, birchwoods, upland oakwoods, upland mixed ashwoods and upland wet woods. The main aim is to research alternative silvicultural options with the objective of improving management practice.

A series of long-term monitoring plots have been established in five native pinewoods representing a range of site and climatic types in upland Scotland. Information has been collected on the age structure, spatial structure and recruitment of natural regeneration over time at each of these sites.  This information is being used as a model for the stand dynamics of pinewoods, and is helping inform management decisions on the recruitment of natural regeneration and naturalisation (i.e. alteration of plantations of native origin seed source to more natural stand structures) of existing plantations.  Further plots are likely to be established for other native woodland types.

‘Managing the Pinewoods of Scotland’ is a major recent publication. Planned outputs are a Practice Note on the control of Rhododendron ponticum in the British Isles and journal papers on the silviculture of native Scots pinewoods.

Commissioned reports

No reports available at this time