Timber iQ February - March 2019 // Issue: 42 | Page 10

NEWS
Trees and climate change:
faster growth, lighter wood
The wood density of European trees has been
decreasing continuously since 1870.
Wood from commercially farmed trees offers renewability, carbon neutrality and versatility required for green innovation.
T
rees are growing more rapidly due to climate change.
This sounds like good news. After all, this means that
trees are storing more carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere in their wood and hence taking away the key
ingredient in global warming. But is it that simple? A team
from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) analysed
wood samples from the oldest existing experimental areas
spanning a period of 150 years – and reached a surprising
conclusion.
The team led by Hans Pretzsch, Professor for Forest
Growth and Yield Science at the TUM, examined wood
samples from several hundred trees and analysed every
single annual ring using a high-tech procedure — a total of
30 000 of them. "The heart of the LignoStation is a high-
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FEBRUARY / MARCH 2019 //
frequency probe which scans each sample in steps of a
hundredth of a millimetre," says Pretzsch, explaining the
analysis procedure. "By doing so, we measure the specific
weight of the wood with an accuracy and resolution which
until recently was unthinkable."
The wood samples come from the oldest experimental
forest plots in Europe which were created at the same time
the TU Munich was founded 150 years ago. The samples
were taken from common European tree species such as
spruces, pines, beeches and oaks. "We have detailed
knowledge of the history of every single plot and tree," says
Pretzsch. "This allows us to rule out the possibility that our
findings could result from the forest being managed
differently now when compared to 100 years ago."
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