The growth potential of understorey silver fir and Norway spruce for uneven-aged forest management in Slovenia

Summary This paper describes dendrochronological and silvicultural investigations in natural or near-natural, and selectively managed, uneven-aged Dinaric silver fir‐beech forests in Slovenia. The results indicate that relatively old understorey silver fir and Norway spruce trees still have a high capacity to tolerate shading and suppression, and can show a vigorous growth response after release. This capacity for growth after suppression did not depend on the tree age or duration of the juvenile stage. The tree-ring width trends of the released understorey trees shows that they have clearly been increasing since around 1950. The current growth rate of released trees is from 3.2 (Norway spruce) to 5.7 (silver fir) times higher than that of suppressed trees. The results suggest that understorey silver fir and Norway spruce trees still have a high potential for application of single tree or small group selection silvicultural systems.