End use

End-use referred to in the forestry harvesting of forest resources and a forestry department, which in the forest management in the long term planned harvest age, called the rotation period has reached. The end use is a use within the scope of the operational form of the abrupt high forest . Since federal and state forest laws prohibit the unauthorized conversion of the forest to other forms of use, the forest must generally be rejuvenated after the end use of forest areas by creating cultivated areas . This obligation to subsequent reforestation does not apply if a new generation of young trees has already established itself among the old trees in the years or decades before the end-use of the old stand. This can be done through natural growth (= natural regeneration) or, if there are no seed-producing old trees of the desired tree species on site, through planting or sowing (= artificial regeneration , front cultivation , pre-cultivation ).

In contrast, prior use is the thinning and thus only selective use with positive selection of a stand that is not yet ready for harvest for the purpose of maintaining and optimizing the quality of the remaining stand.

Definition of terms

The concept of end use is closely related to the age group model of forestry. The age class model developed in connection with the principle of mass sustainability , which was also developed in Germany into the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of the overexploitation of forests. In essence, mass sustainability means that no more wood may be removed from the forest than can sustainably grow back for subsequent generations during the extraction period.

In keeping with the biologically different development cycles of the tree species, site-specific characteristics and marketable, salable wood assortments, standardized rotation times were set for the main tree species . The age group model works u. a. for the purpose of planning and simplifying the administrative structures with two-dimensional stands of the same age, which are mostly created from trees of the same species. Thus, for each stock definable periods for care and Vornutzungen and for the final end use of the stock in the forest management are planned and maintained usually in the operational forestry.

Thinning is carried out in the high forest, but also in other forms of operation such as the plenter forest or natural economy; the end use with subsequent cultivation is, on the other hand, a characteristic intervention of the abrupt high forest.

The term "end use" is not normally used for harvesting trunks that are ready for felling in unevenly aged stands, but is occasionally found in terms such as "end-use thinning" etc.

Silvicultural implementation

Central planning works of forestry are the site mapping and forest management . The site mapping first records the growth conditions of a forest site with regard to climate, water and nutrient supply as well as hazards such as B. Danger of wind throws. Based on this, the site mapping recommends suitable forest coverings with tree species or their mixtures, which have the best ecological and economic prospects for success at the given site.

The forest management system inventories and plans the development and possible use of the stocks for periods of mostly 10 years based on the site mapping. With a view to mapping, inventory and current factors such as the market situation, it determines the pre-use and end-use dimensions, drawing up maintenance plans for each inventory for the installation period.

Until the beginning of the 1990s, end-use stocks in Germany were mostly harvested in piecework by manual work with a chainsaw after the rotation period had been reached could not be dealt with efficiently by hand or without the high accident rate expected in the storm. As a result, regular end uses were increasingly carried out mechanically, as harvesters or harvesters called harvesting machines that were quickly adapted to large timber dimensions were developed.

In order to avoid the negative effects of this type of operation, the abrupt high forest, various cutting techniques were developed in the transition to natural management, which only partially cleared the stock in order to initiate soil turf and subsequent natural rejuvenation.

Problems and alternatives

The main problem of the abrupt high forest, the management of forests with extensive end use, is the long-term, energy-intensive intervention in the ecosystem with non-market and therefore not sales-oriented accumulation of a certain range of wood when a nakedness remains in the forest, which under z. T. high work and material expenditure must be taken under culture . Accordingly, the reduction in the legally permissible clear-cutting areas has been observed in relevant federal and state forest laws for years .

In contrast to classic areal end use, natural forest management involves small-scale interventions, e.g. B. under single trunk use when reaching a defined target strength of the single trunk. Provided that there are appropriate wild stocks, this form of farming significantly reduces the effort otherwise required for rejuvenation, since when natural rejuvenation emerges, no expensive nursery plants have to be put to work and no fence has to be built. This is usually associated with the development towards a mix of tree species that is more in line with natural conditions.