Successful sampling of trees for stem analysis in Shitai County

22.07.2013

Within the last 4 months, from February to June 2013, our tree felling team, formed by PhD students from the University of Göttingen and master students from Freiburg University and Anhui Agricultural University, supported by the Shitai Forestry Bureau, carried out the first round of cutting trees for the Lin2Value project. Trees were cut in order to determine the exact biomass and analyze the growth characteristics. Cutting the trees on the steep terrain with about 30°-50° slope is always challenging. In each plot, a dominant, a medium size and a suppressed tree of different timber species was cut. After felling the trees, two groups of the team work separately on the tree: one group focused on biomass assessment e.g. branches (including branch diameter, aspects and collecting branch samples of different diameter size) and the weight of the tree sections); the other group focused on collecting discs at different heights. The volume and weight of all discs were measured in the lab after they were dried in a big heating oven in a sawmill. After drying, the discs are processed by polishing and scanning. In the end, 92 trees of 8 species were cut. Now back in Germany the analyses of the tree rings start. It will give valuable information about the growth characteristics of the different timber tree species in Shitai County