Beståndsutveckling i stormskadade granbestånd

Sammanfattning: The storm Gudrun in 2005 led to massive windthow damage in forests in southern Sweden. Since then there has been a growing interest in factors influencing wind damage in above all Norway spruce (Picea Abies) stands. Although many other interesting areas still need to be examined. In 2005 there where a lot of stands that suffered different degrees of damage, a lot of these stands weren’t cut, but instead left to grow. The future development of these stands is uncertain and the guidelines are unclear. The aim of this Master thesis is to examine the developments that have occurred in several damaged stands on the Swedish west coast since the storm in 2005. To make an accurate prediction of the stand development a tree growth simulator (Prod Mod) was used to simulate future growth. To make sure the simulator was an accurate tool for simulating wind damaged stands the measured growth since 2005 was compared with the simulated growth, with some minor differences as a result. Also the thesis looked into different factors that could influence stand development in stormdamagde stands. Factors such as gap size proved to be of importance but the results from tree dispersal and number of gaps as well as tree vitality proved to be inconclusive.