Socio-Economic Importance Of Associated Plant Species In Short Rotation Coppice Plantations

Abstract Many ecosystem services do not pass through markets. Therefore, the benefits which ecosystems provide to society are largely unrecorded. Fast-growing woody crops represent a quite new and still insufficiently explored ecosystem of agricultural land which has a potential to provide several utility functions. It may contribute to satisfaction of human needs and may enhance regional health. The goal of this paper was to detect the socio-economic importance of associated spontaneous vegetation in plantations of the energy crops (hybrids of the genera Salix) and to compare it with the socio-economic importance of adjacent permanently cultivated agricultural field. There was examined the therapeutic, melliferous, feed, allergenic and toxic potential of undergrowth for each experimental plot inside the SRC plantations. The research was carried out on the agricultural land formerly used for growing cereals and root crops – the research base Kolíňany. Our results showed that energy plantation understoreys can be assumed to be the better option for contribution to the total socio-economic value of a region than agricultural fields.