A Guide to Forest Tree Species Selection and Silviculture in Ireland

Dublin

2004

257 S.

Monographie

1-902696-41-7

168643

The book is divided into six chapters. The short introductory chapter provides some recent historical background, and Chapter 2 considers the economic and environmental functions of forests in Ireland (the authors recognize that forests can also have a social function, but do not discuss this any further).
Chapters 3 and 4 cover the matching of tree species to site. In Chapter 3 the authors discuss climate (temperature, precipitation and wind), site (topography, exposure and aspect) and soil, which they consider to be ‘the major factors influencing growth potential, and consequently species selection’. Species selection guidelines (Chapter 4) are based primarily on the ability of different species to produce commercial timber on different soil types, and are summarized in tables which could be used by practitioners. However, not everyone will agree that the distinctions made between climate, site and soil are sensible, or that growth potential for commercial timber production should be the sole criterion for species selection. To add to the confusion, the header on the pages of Chapter 3 reads ‘Site characteristics’, though the title given at the start of the chapter and in the table of contents is ‘Site productivity’.
Chapter 5 contains a detailed and helpful discussion of the use and silviculture of mixed-species plantations, and Chapter 6 provides comprehensive notes on all the species mentioned earlier in the book. The use of three sections for broadleaves, conifers and native species means that many species have two entries in this final chapter, resulting in a certain amount of unnecessary repetition. There are clear photographs of most of the species, though COFORD has acknowledged that one or two of them are correct only at the generic level. A glossary and a bibliography are followed by three appendices giving common and botanical names for tree species, other plant species, and pest and disease organisms, and two appendices with guidelines for soil and foliar sampling.
The book is nicely laid out and easy to read, and the authors' experience and expertise are evident. It does leave the reader with the strong impression that all forests in Ireland are plantations; natural regeneration is mentioned only in passing, and silvicultural systems are not discussed at all. Presumably this reflects the reality on the ground, but for a wider readership it might have been clearer if the book had been entitled A Guide to Forest Tree Species Selection and Plantation Silviculture in Ireland.
The species notes in Chapter 6 of A Guide to Forest Tree Species Selection and Silviculture in Ireland include recommendations on provenance choice, developed after many years of field testing of different provenances on sites in Ireland. The slow pace of field-based provenance testing is in marked contrast to the rapid progress being made in the laboratory-based subject of molecular genetics. The aim of the editors of Molecular Genetics and Breeding of Forest Trees was to provide a ‘unified approach to forest tree molecular biology research for the benefit of students and researchers’, and to this end they have elicited contributions from researchers based in a dozen different countries, all of them experts in their subject areas. The editors are to be congratulated on their ambitious undertaking and have largely succeeded in their aim, though in such a rapidly moving field it is inevitable that at least parts of the book will become outdated quite quickly.
The book has 17 chapters, grouped into four parts: forest tree functional genomics; molecular biology of wood formation; forest tree transgenesis; genome mapping in forest trees. Most of the chapters have a final section (usually called ‘conclusions’ or ‘perspectives’) that will be of interest to the general reader; for example, Lida et al. discuss the outlook for insect-resistant transgenic trees in China. However, the bulk of the text deals with specialist material that will only be fully appreciated by the researchers at whom the book is aimed. The paperback version of the book, in particular, is good value for money, and copies should be bought for the libraries of all universities and research institutes with an interest in the molecular genetics of forest trees.