COST Action E 52 - vTI - Bund.de

(lowest) Vth class. At 100 years of age, in the Ist site class, the proportion of industrial wood is 2%,
of which 65% is sawnwood (Enescu 1993).
The amount of European beech wood harvested in the forests (state and private) of Romania in the
past 10 years is shown in table 1.
Tab. 1: Amount of beech wood harvested in Romania in the past 10 years (Romanian Statistic Yearbook
2008)
Year 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Harvested volume
(million m3 )
3.963 4.505 4.956 4.480 4.439 4.748 5.412 4.794 4.997 5.182
ForesT research
In Romania, because of only natural regeneration (by seed), European beech has not been the topic
of a breeding programme. For that reason its phenotypic and genetic variability was barely searched
in-depth.
A biosystematic research in 60 natural populations has investigated traits of pulp production interest
(Ciocnitu et al. 19 5). Populations with high pulp value were found in the north of the Eastern
Carpathians, Suceava Plateau, south Eastern Carpathians, Mehedinţi Plateau and in Western
Carpathians (Apuseni Mountains).
Another study (Urecheatu 1992) using natural populations took into consideration 42
morphological and anatomical parameters and showed a very large inter- and intrapopulation
variability. The research carried out by Stănescu and Şofletea in 1990 – 1992 in European beech
populations from a relevant proportion of its natural range in Romania showed a large variation of
some leaves’ morphology and bark colour.
The first study regarding phenotypic and genotypic variation of European beech in Romania was
initiated by Enescu et Muhs (1988). The first step was the study of phenotypic variation of some
evolutionary traits in natural populations of European beech from Romania. The biosystematic
research of 21 natural populations selected after 5 altitudinal profiles containing the main parts of
European beech natural range had included the measurement and observation of 29 traits of forest
interest. The first results showed the existence of a large variation of those traits. The second step was
the establishment of international provenance trials in Romania in 1995 and 1998 (Wuehlisch von
200 ). These trials were the object of other research projects performed by Ioniţă in 2005 – 2008
(Mihai et al. 2008).
Researches on differentiation in European beech at allozyme loci were performed by Gömöry et
al. (2003). The Romanian Carpathians are unambiguously the centre of the allelic richness, both at
the regional and population level. On the other hand, allelic richness exhibits very distinct trends.
Despite local variations, centres of high as well as low allelic multiplicity can easily be identified.
Extremely low values occur at the northeastern limit of the distribution range – Baltic coast and
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