Coppice

Niederwald is the name given to a forest of coppice. While the use and promotion of Stock rashes was known already in the Stone Age, emerged coppice forests in the Iron Age by trees were repeatedly precipitated and thus by a set capable of regeneration of vegetation. These trees are capable of regeneration in Central Europe mainly oak, hornbeam, linden, maple, ash and hazel, which are precipitated in a cycle of 10 to 30 years single stem in part or in parcels as needed. This creates a clear and inhomogeneous surface that is passed with shrubby trees or bushes of about 3 to 10 m in height. Regeneration is then created from the remaining in the soil root stocks and stumps, partly also from root suckers. Coppice forests are available in many variations, depending on use and location. Forms the Niederwald include the winner and the countries Hauberg Lohhecken the Rhenish Slate Mountains.

Tree species

The taper in the Niederwald made ​​exclusively from coppice. The transition to the Coppice shows where the taper can also be done by standing of each core were growing (so-called Lassreisel ). Where the taper is done for centuries exclusively from coppice, the resulting overaged sticks stocks are usually slow-growing, as it would permit the respective location.

The coppicing has particularly encouraged the tree species that turn out well from the floor, for example, hornbeam, lime or hazel. Oaks, poplars or birches are less decisive joyfully. Even light needy tree species such as rowan, Real Whitebeam, serviceberry, service tree, bird cherry, birch, ash or aspen, which partly forms of Vorwaldgesellschaften ( clearings, succession areas and forest edges ) or the hedges are to you, get in coppice forests or grown from coppice stands frequently. The herb flora is more strongly represented because of the favorable light conditions in coppice forests than in high forests. In places, also from Alder stocks were (mainly in wine regions ) manages (on wet sites) or sweet chestnut coppice forests as. In the French department of Isère and the south of England the coppicing with chestnuts is still to be found, while experimenting in the Swiss canton of Ticino with chestnut coppice forests for timber production value.

Use

The embarked wood was mostly utilized as firewood; until the 19th century also played the charcoal a major role. As additional use often Lohr indene extraction was practiced until the 1960s; here the tannin bark was peeled off from the freshly chosen oak rods to the Lohlöffel and of the thinner oak billets with a hammer and then dried beef. Customers were the local tanneries. The impact of Lohholzes in spring before the leaves. In the Rhenish Slate Mountains, for example, the field of Ahreifel or Ösling ( Luxembourg ), the oaks were to reach height standing peeled (at the time of the greatest sap flow, ie until the end of May ) and only then precipitated.

The fresh -cut punches were partly used for agriculture until the coppice were too high ( Röder economy). This type of use has been largely discontinued during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Today's conditions

While in Germany less than 1% of the forest area is managed as coppice, the expansion in other countries is much higher ( in 1963 it amounted to, for example, in France 33% ).

Today in Central Europe, very few stocks are managed as coppice; most are converted either in the transfer into high forest or, as commonly practiced until the 1990s, in coniferous stands. The grown by or transferred stocks are today (2005 ) for the most part between 50 and 80 years old. Tree species composition and weed flora will change in the long term convicted stocks, depending on location and management, in most cases.

In some areas, the maintenance or recovery of the Niederwald operation is encouraged in order to maintain this historical forest use and shape their typical vegetation in a limited area. An example of this is the low forest in parts of the Jasmund National Park on the island of Rügen. Here is the dominant tree species, the beech, which at this point is to stick sprouting in a position only because of the particularly favorable climatic and soil conditions. Even with the recently increasing energy wood management is experimented with coppices, because the fast-growing forest tree species hardly require care and rapidly produce biomass. A modern, comparable mode of production of biomass is the short-rotation plantation.

Biodiversity and aesthetics

In all forms of low forest, the light penetrates through to more in the herb layer. "The great scenic charm of these modes consists primarily of wood species composition and in its capacity as a transition to the field or to the gloomy forest landscape. " Both in their aesthetic appearance, they differ from the high forest as well as in terms of their biodiversity. The Central European low- growth forests are among 14 forest communities. In comparison with the other forest types shows about for Switzerland that the low forest in the book free deciduous forest communities ( bedstraw - hornbeam forest, Plebejus - mixed oak forest, grass pea - mixed oak forest, lime mixed forest ) is very significantly over-represented. In the snow cornices -Buchwald is here but with fewer plant species than expected in the high forest.