Recently, German spruce forests had been severely affected by a bark-beetle calamity (2018 – 2024), which put forth a calamity area of > 500 000 ha (BMEL 2024). In Germany, the Sauerland region and the Harz mountains registered the largest amounts of calamity timber during that period. As a consequence, the standing volume of Norway spruce forests in North Rhine-Westphalia decreased up to 60 % (MLV NRW, 2024). In 2018, the winter storm “Friederike” followed by an extreme summer drought brought forth a bark beetle calamity in North Rhine-Westphalia, which had not been there since 1947 (Niesar et al. 2018). The consequences: massive quantities of calamity timber were at once available and exceeded both harvesting, conservation and processing capacities and even the regional demand for Norway spruce wood. Thus, calamity adapted and feasible conservation techniques were needed (Brischke et al. 2024, Emmerich et al. 2025) to preserve logs as the key resource for material utilizations of wood along regional supply chains. In this context, dry storage of standing-stored, beetle-infested spruce logs was studied in order to find a calamity adapted, feasible and cost-effective conservation technique for beetle-infested calamity timber.
Keywords: bark beetle, calamities, conservation, dry storage, monitoring, Norway spruce
Authors
Christian Brischke
Thünen Institute of Wood Research, Germany
Jan-Frederik Trautwein
Wood Biology and Wood Products, University of Goettingen, Germany
Marcus Schwartz
Wald und Holz NRW, Centre of Forest and Wood Industry, Team Wood-Based Industries, Olsberg, Germany
Lukas Emmerich
Wald und Holz NRW, Centre of Forest and Wood Industry, Team Wood-Based Industries, Olsberg, Germany
Stefanie Wieland
Wald und Holz NRW, Centre of Forest and Wood Industry, Team Wood-Based Industries, Olsberg, Germany
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