Clear-cutting a forest is relatively easy. You just pick a tree and start chopping. However, there are benefits to more sophisticated forest management. One technique, which involves repeatedly harvesting smaller trees every 30 years or so but leaving an upper story of larger trees for longer period like 60, 90 or 120 years, ensures a steady supply of both firewood and construction timber.
This management technique first arose in Europe, but when? To discover that, researchers studied oak construction timbers from historical buildings and archaeological sites dating from the 4th to the 21st centuries. What they discovered was rather interesting. There’s a characteristic tree ring pattern in these oaks that extends as far back as the sixth century. The researchers were surprised by this finding because this forest management practice only shows up in historical documents beginning in the thirteenth century.
As it’s known, the coppice-with-standards management practice produces a two-story forest. This provides an upper story of single trees that are allowed to grow for several understory generations. That arrangement imprints a characteristic tree ring pattern in the forest’s upper story trees. They are thick rings indicative of heavy growth, which show up at regular intervals as the surrounding smaller trees are cut down. These trees grow faster and you can see it with the naked eye.
Researchers characterized the dendrochronological pattern in 161 oak trees growing in central Germany, one of the few remaining sites in Europe with actively managed coppice-with-standards forests. They found up to nine cycles of heavy growth in the trees, the oldest of which was planted in 1761. The researchers then turned to a historical data set which included over 2,000 oak timbers from buildings and archaeological sites in Germany and France dating from the years 300 – 2015. They were looking for a similar pattern.
Guess what? They found it in trees dating as far back as the 6th century. The researchers were surprised by this discovery because the first mention of this type of forest management system was not mentioned in the annals of history until the 13th century. One plausible explanation is that forest management practices weren’t well documented prior to the High Middle Ages (1000 – 1250). Prior to that, forests were mainly mentioned in the context of royal hunting interests or donations.
The researchers hope to analyze a larger sample of historic timbers to trace how the coppice-with-standards practice spread throughout Europe. They think it’ll be interesting to understand where this technique originated and how it propagated.
We think it’s an interesting line of study and hope you do too. Thank you for reading our blog.
