The most significant results of long-term research on silviculture experiments focusing on spruce and beech in the territory of the former Czechoslovakia

This work summarizes the history and development of the research on silviculture in the former Czechoslovakia. A different approach of the silviculture research reflecting various site conditions was presented separately for the Bohemian area (later Czech Republic) and Slovakia (later Slovak Republic). The research focused especially on spruce forests in the Czech Republic, and on pure and mixed beech stands in the Slovak Republic. The attention was also paid to the history of research institutions before and after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The results achieved so far have been analyzed with particular focus on silviculture of the two most significant tree species in the former Czechoslovakia, namely the Norway spruce and the European beech. At present, the two species dominate the tree species composition of both countries. The spruce comprises 50.5% of the forests in the Czech Republic, and 23.1% in Slovakia. The share of beech is 33.5% in Slovakia, but only 8.3% in the Czech Republic. In both countries, the share of these tree species has changed, in comparison with their original proportion. It is more evident in the Czech Republic than in Slovakia, especially in the case of spruce. For the two tree species, the most important results of a long-term research (including developed original thinning methods) were evaluated separately for each country.