Order of harvesting and processing storm-damaged timber – proceeding in Baden-Württemberg after "Lothar"

Before starting to harvest storm-damaged timber one should in a general way fix in which order in with which priorities the different tree species and forest stands will be treated. Thereby the aspects:

• "Absorbing capacity of the timber market"
• "Marketable assortments and timber utilization"
• "Forest protection"

have to be taken into account and weighted against each other.

The speed of the harvesting and processing plays an important role. Depending on the amount of damaged timber (volume and species) in the forest enterprise, the situation on the timber market, the own available labour capacity and the possibility to store timber, it is useful to stretch the harvesting of the timber.

Hereby, the actual situation of forest protection and its development has to be taken into account. In the following, the strategy of harvesting and processing of storm damaged timber after the storm event "Lothar" in December 1999 of the state forest service of Baden-Württemberg will be described as one possible approach:

The following order has been fixed, whereas an adaptation to local conditions was necessary:

1. Clear the necessary transport- and forest roads; ensure the access to the damaged areas and the hauling of the processed timber. It is recommended to firstly clear the roads to the required areas (if this is in line with the general traffic, e.g. for recreation, …) and – if possible - to process into marketable assortments. Overhasty cutting of trees into small logs to clear roads increases problems in marketing, storing and protecting timber against insects.
2. Start with processing beech and valuable hardwoods – minimum quality class B and size L 3b (- mid diameter >35 cm) (3a >30cm) – at first on large areas until 4 months after the event (in case of a winterstorm), after that also scattered trees should be harvested until 8 months after the event. The reason therefore is to avoid a fast devaluation of the valuable hardwood timber. Moreover, the cost-intensive processing of small and low-valued hardwood should be avoided for economic reasons, resp. to be restricted to unavoidable cases.
3. Processing of "damage-nests", especially with broken trees of spruce and pine (motor manual), remove stumps, process as long poles. The most important point here is to avoid bark beetles, as broken trees will be attacked the fastest by bark-breeding beetles (e.g. Ips typographus). Especially storm damage-nests and concentrated single damages are starting points for bark-beetle damages. This danger has to be minimised by completely removing the breeding-material from the beginning.
4. Processing of large storm damaged areas of Norway spruce and pine with the help of contractors until 15 months after a winterstorm. Due to the large and nation-wide offer of harvesters and forwarders large storm-damaged areas could be processed at the same time as "damage-nests". If there is a lack of demand or no possibility of wet storage, processing should be postponed. Ideal for postponing are large damaged areas with a share of broken trees of less than 20%.
5. Other conifers: The experiences from the storm in 1990 showed that bark beetles at silver fir are less aggressive. There also a minor forest protection problem with Douglas fir. Non-processed Douglas fir was estimated to be storable in situ until 2002 (24 months after the storm event).
6. Valuable logs and stemwood of oak and poplar: Oak should only be processed on demand. Both tree species have been successfully stored unprocessed in situ until winter 2001/2002, or even spring 2002 (12-24 months after the storm event).
7. Processing of small sized conifer logs (< 20 cm dbh) and industrial hardwood is of subordinate importance. No treatment of logging debris in the year 2000. According to the experiences of the year 1990 the risk of attacks by Pityogenes chalcographus can be controlled. No danger of bark-breeding bark-beetles is issued from broadleaves.