Thinning trials in lowland plantations in the Veneto Region (North-eastern Italy)

Abstract

Thinning trials in lowland plantations in the Veneto Region (North-eastern Italy). More than 234 hectares of new plantations of lowland mixed forest have been realized in the last 20 years in the Veneto Region (North-eastern Italy). In many of these is now needed to start thinning operations, but there is a lack of experience about this topic. Aim of this work was to undertake an experimentation on different types of thinnings. The thinning trial has been performed at Bosco San Marco forest, municipality of Cessalto (Venice), in a very dense hornbeam-oak plantation aged 16. In 2010, three different thinning types were implemented on 9 hectares according to the following layout: geometrical (34% of woody mass removed), selective (15%), mixed geometrical-selective (30%), control plot. Three years later no significant differences between thinning trials in term of diametric growth, geometrical thinning excepted, were observed. These results provide a suite of solutions to the forest manager for choosing the early thinning type in high tree density condition.