Beståndsutveckling i stormskadade granbestånd
The storm Gudrun in 2005 led to massive windthow damage in forests in southern Sweden.
Since then there has been a growing interest in factors influencing wind damage in above all
Norway spruce (Picea Abies) stands. Although many other interesting areas still need to be
examined. In 2005 there where a lot of stands that suffered different degrees of damage, a lot of
these stands weren?t cut, but instead left to grow. The future development of these stands is
uncertain and the guidelines are unclear. The aim of this Master thesis is to examine the
developments that have occurred in several damaged stands on the Swedish west coast since the
storm in 2005. To make an accurate prediction of the stand development a tree growth
simulator (Prod Mod) was used to simulate future growth. To make sure the simulator was an
accurate tool for simulating wind damaged stands the measured growth since 2005 was
compared with the simulated growth, with some minor differences as a result. Also the thesis
looked into different factors that could influence stand development in stormdamagde stands.
Factors such as gap size proved to be of importance but the results from tree dispersal and
number of gaps as well as tree vitality proved to be inconclusive.