Diversification of forests with silver birch to safeguard resilience and multifunctional roles of forests

Norway spruce and Scots pine totally dominate Swedish forest production but recent damage to these tree-species is jeopardizing future sustainable forest production. It is extremely important that tree-species used in forestry is more diversified.

Planted silver birch (Betula pendula) has several advantages for being substantial addition to traditional tree-species in Swedish forestry.

It has high production and wood quality which makes it a tree-species for industrial use for plywood, fiber, and furniture with clear potential for market expansion. In this project, we will set the base for a large introduction of planted silver birch in Swedish production forests. The project is organized into four work packages (WPs) that address important knowledge gaps.

WP1 investigates the effect of various regeneration and stand management treatments on stand- and individual tree growth, and the risks/benefits to future wood-quality.

WP2 investigates landscape level effects of large-scale introduction of birch on production, harvests, and profitability of forest management, and on forest properties relevant to important ecosystem services.

WP3 assesses the biodiversity and socio-ecological implications, identifying ways to reduce the costs and optimize the benefits to forest biodiversity from short-rotation birch.

WP4 employs an interdisciplinary framework to examine the potential for system innovations to promote more birch based on the current forest policy instrumentation.