Five weeks after a strong storm accompanied by gusty winds caused localised devastation in the forests of Mendel University (MENDELU), intensive work is continuing to address its consequences. One of the priorities of the employees of the Masaryk Forest in Křtiny (ŠLP Křtiny) was the speedy processing of fallen and partially fallen trees, in order to prevent deterioration in the value of the wood and thus a lower sale price. In the case of conifers, it is also necessary to avoid the danger of bark blight.
The management of ŠLP Křtiny, assessing the extent of the calamity, identified a total volume of 40,300 m³ of wood intended for processing. “From this volume, we are dealing with approximately 14,000 m³ of spruce wood, which, if the situation in the stands allows, is processed as a priority and immediately dispatched from the forest to customers. In addition, we estimate that there are 13,000 m³ of broken or otherwise damaged beech, 4,300 m³ of larch and 3,200 m³ of oak in the stands,” said Tomáš Vrška, director of ŠLP Křtiny.
These are mostly mixed stands. For this reason, foresters cannot prioritise spruce when processing. “From scrums of broken trees, we cannot select only individual spruce trunks,” said ŠLP Křtiny production manager Čestmír Šnoblt. “The immediate involvement of our own employees and the subsequent contracting of suppliers enables us, despite this obstacle, to proceed with the liquidation relatively quickly. We believe that it will not be necessary to take extra measures to protect the forest, and we will only marginally employ the chemical treatment of wood dumps.”
The employees of ŠLP Křtiny managed to secure sales for almost the entire volume of affected wood of all assortments in a short period of time. The final contracts for valuable larch carvings are awaiting signature.
“As the liquidation proceeds, we are also specifying the areas where the clearing will be created,” said Vrška. “It is already certain that there will be fewer of them than we expected. Damaged trees are scattered throughout the stand in several places. We are clearing the trees carefully, so it will not be necessary to deal with the restoration of these places, they will manage to restore themselves. We will only be able to assess what the situation will be in the larger damaged areas after they have been cleared.”
Due to sometimes complicated access or dangerous scrums of damaged trees, the processing of the damage will last for the entire period of the ban on entering the forests, until 30 September 2024. “Even after that, repairs to the damaged forest road network will continue into the winter,” said Šnoblt.
At the same time as the liquidation works in the stands, the academic staff of MENDELU, especially from the Faculty of Forestry and Woodwork, are carrying out experiments on the disaster area, focused on the response of the soil environment to the devastation, and on the effect of unremoved brushwood and wood left to rot in the area.
