Optimizing quality wood production in chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) coppices

In the last decades, releasing standards have become a very common and in some cases even mandatory management options in coppice systems in Europe. As for the chestnut tree, a light demanding and fast-growing species, however, there is a lively debate and a lack of scientific evidences about the pros and cons of releasing standards, especially in stands devoted to quality wood production. In this paper we used nine chestnut coppice stands growing on similar site conditions - but differing in stool density and number of standard trees released - to analyze the effects of the stand structure (i.e., stool and standard density) on the growing performance in terms of diameter increment of the dominant shoots and overall basal area production. Simple coppicing (i.e., no standards release) confirmed to be the most suitable system to enable an initial full growing performance of a light-demanding species such as the chestnut. We thus recommend avoiding the release of standards in quality-wood chestnut coppices in order to allow the new shoots generation to develop undisturbed until the stage of the first thinning. The release of standards in chestnut coppices may however be appropriate in particular cases, such as in stands whose main aim is to protect against shallow landslides along steep slopes.