Summary

The selection of species for the established forest plantation must be adapted to soil conditions and the purpose of the planned afforestation. Plantations on poor, formerly arable lands will be based on pine mixed with other species, while the species introduced on the foothill and mountain areas – where the soils are generally more fertile – will include spruce, beech, fir mixed with sycamore, ash, oak, larch, linden, black alder and other species.

Planting should begin in the spring, as soon as possible after the snow melts and the soil de-freezes. Planting can be done by machine or by hand depending on the age of the seedlings and the development of the root system.

Currently three types of seedlings are used for afforestation: (i) bare root seedlings produced on the open area of plant nurseries, (ii) seedling plugs or seedlings in standardised containers with covered root system, produced under controlled conditions, and (iii) seedlings with covered and mycorrhized root system in standardised containers produced under controlled conditions with the use of a special substrate.

Bare root seedlings are often used for both afforestation and reforestation. Drying the roots during transport, storage and handling is particularly dangerous here. When we use seedling plugs with covered root system, we can avoid these problems, and thus guarantee high efficiency of the plantation and high seedling survival rate.

After planting the trees the cultivation stage takes place until they reach canopy closure, which takes about 5-10 years. This stage includes indispensable cultivation procedures, such as soil scarification, weed elimination, improving the state of the trees, pre-commercial thinning.

The soil scarification procedure is most often performed in May and June, when the trees are two and three years old, that is during a period of intensive growth of both the seedlings and the weeds. Soil scarification improves its structure and oxygen conditions, facilitates water percolation and oozing, creating good conditions for growth and development of seedlings. It is usually combined with the eradication of weeds. These procedures are carried out mechanically in spacings, often using disc harrows or rotovators and all sorts of weeders. The cultivation of the soil and weed elimination should be repeated again in August on weedy soils.

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