Session 3: Reproductive Material
In connection with the calamity, large clearing areas arise which have to be afforested – mostly by artificial forest regeneration. However, with such a sudden increase of this need comes the question how to provide adequate amounts of suitable reproductive material (seeds and seedlings). Shortage can be expected especially in case of deciduous trees and the silver fir with their long-term fertility period. Due to the areal decrease of adult forest stands, the gene pool of many valuable forest tree species populations disappears. Therefore, conservation measures of such populations are another issue to be solved in this situation.
Contributions in this section will primarily focus on answering the following questions:
- Where and how to provide the necessary amount of reproductive material including sufficient capacities for reproductive material collection, its processing and forest nursery production?
- What are the current capacities and progress in long-term storage of deciduous tree and silver fir seeds which will help us bridge the infertile periods?
- What happens, in genetic point of view, in specific stands during abrupt change of forests generations and tree species composition? Which steps should be taken to conserve the gene pool of regional populations in conditions of the changing climate?