Density and growth of forest stands revisited. Effect of the temporal scale of observation, site quality, and thinning

摘要

Many current stand management guidelines propose low initial stand densities and strong density reductions in order to lower the costs of stand establishment, to accelerate stand growth and promote the diameter growth of selected future crop trees. The long-term effects of density reductions on growth and yield, however, are often neglected; they remain open for debate due to a lack of empirical evidence.