Pre-commercial thinning in young norway spruce stands as a tool mitigating global climate change?

Although the ongoing global climate change elicits a shift in tree species composition along the vertical gradient, very extensive areas of pure Norway spruce [Picea abies (L.) Karst.] stands still occur out of their ecological optimum in the Czech Republic and Central Europe. Adaptive measures should be applied in these stands to promote productivity and stability. All measurements were performed in the 2018-2021 period on three permanent research plots located in the North-East part of Bohemia (Czech Republic). Based on the results, the most favourable way to increase solar radiation use efficiency expressed by canopy production index (CPI) and leaf area efficiency (LAE) is in-time heavy pre -commercial thinning application. The highest CPI and LAE values were observed in the Norway spruce stand after heavy pre-commercial thinning application (CPI = 2.00 and LAE = 1.59). In contrast, CPI = 1.26 and LAE = 0.99 were observed after the mild one, and CPI = 0.73 and LAE = 0.60 were reported in the control treatment with no silvicultural intervention. Overall, the presented results indicate a positive effect of heavy pre-commercial thinning on CPI and LAE in pure young Norway spruce stands. However, more effort should be devoted to studying the impact of different pre-commercial thinning intensities on solar radiation use efficacy across a broader gradient of site conditions, and future work should also be extended to other tree species.