Schwaan (dpa/mv) – In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, research is being carried out at three new locations on the future of climate-stable mixed forests. For this purpose, test forests were created with the support of the federal government in Schwaan (Rostock district), Ruthenbeck (Ludwigslust-Parchim) and Elmenhorst (West Pomerania-Rügen), as State Minister of Agriculture Till Backhaus (SPD) told journalists in Friedrichshof near Schwaan on Thursday. The universities of Rostock and Greifswald are also involved in the project. The main focus here is on so-called wet locations, such as in river valleys, which make up around a quarter of the forest area in the north-east.
This should also replace the ash tree that is lost as a result of the dying of ash trees as a source of valuable wood, said Backhaus. The new plantings on state areas are compared with research on older test forests over a period of five years and evaluated together.
Overall, the forest in the north-east is doing a little worse again after the dry and sometimes very hot year 2022, said Backhaus. The number of trees with significant damage has increased from 20 percent in the previous year to 25 percent in 2022. In the north-east grows on around 558,000 hectares of forest.
