PREDICTORS OF WOOD QUALITY OF TREES IN PRIMARY FORESTS IN THE SOUTHERN CARPATHIANS

Functional mechanisms in primary forests can help us discover structural models that can be applied to managed forests. Wood quality is important in silviculture because it influences timber price. Using the structure and tree form of primary forests in the Southern Carpathians as a model, our research objectives were to determine the relationships between wood quality and factors such as coenotic position of trees, the ratio of diameter at breast height (DBH) to tree height, and tree slenderness. Wood quality was strongly related to the coenotic position of trees (r = 0.89*–0.99***); suppressed (or dominant) trees had higher quality wood than dominant (or suppressed) trees. Wood quality and slenderness were also highly correlated (r = 0.56–0.95***) in most plots – the more slender the tree, the lower its wood quality. We found that trees with the highest quality wood were in the 30–100 cm DBH range. Therefore, DBH is a reliable predictor of wood quality for uneven-aged forests, providing quick results with little effort.