Root biomass of Scots pine

Lead Institute WO Institute of Forest Ecosystems

The forests in Germany store huge amounts of carbon. Thus they are influencing climate change, but they are also affected by it. Up to one third of the carbon can be found in the roots systems of trees. However, quantitative studies on below-ground biomass of larger Scots pines are yet not done in Germany.

Background and Objective

The main task of the project was to develop a biomass function for the root systems of Scots pines. This function should serve to determine accurately the biomass and the carbon stock below ground.

The developed biomass function increases the precision of biomass estimates that should be used for the National Inventory Report (NIR) 2017. This is a major contribution for improving the greenhouse gas emission reporting. The results shall be published in the Emission Factors Database (EFDB) of the IPCC. Additionally, new insights in root growth and soil structure under various climatic and site conditions are given.

Approach

Roots systems from 43 pines with an diameters at breast-hight (dbh) between 7 and 52 cm were excavated and examined for this project. For the determination of above and belowground biomass we pulled down the sample trees and measured the excavated root systems. Root biomass functions can be derived from the collected data to calculate the belowground biomass from data above ground like dbh and tree height.

Thünen-Contact

Karsten Dunger

Telephone

+49 3334 3820 328

karsten.dunger@thuenen.de

WO Institute of Forest Ecosystems

Involved Thünen-Partners

Duration

1.2011 - 12.2013

More Information

Project status: finished

Publications

0
Neubauer M, Demant B, Bolte A (2015) Einzelbaumbezogene Schätzfunktionen zur unterirdischen Biomasse der Wald-Kiefer (Pinus sylvestris L.). Forstarchiv 86(2):42-47

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