The Destructive Static Tree-Pulling Test Provides Reliable Estimates of the Soil-Root Plate of Eastern Baltic Silver Birch ( Roth.).

Under the intensifying cyclonic activity, the wind resistance of European forests could be increased through science-based adaptive forest management, which requires the quantification of tree stability. In this regard, the dimensions of the soil-root plate can be directly attributed to tree wind resistance; however, naturally uprooted trees might be a biased source of information for the evaluation of adaptive measures due to uncontrolled conditions and uneven sample size. Therefore, the dimensions of the soil-root plates of naturally windthrown silver birch trees ( Roth.

Silver Birch ( Roth.) on Dry Mineral Rather than on Deep Peat Soils Is More Dependent on Frozen Conditions in Terms of Wind Damage in the Eastern Baltic Region.

In Northern Europe, the ongoing winter warming along with increasing precipitation shortens the periods for which soil is frozen, which aggravates the susceptibility of forest stands to wind damage under an increasing frequency of severe wind events via the reduction in soil-root anchorage. Such processes are recognized to be explicit in moist and loose soils, such as deep peat, while stands on dry mineral soils are considered more stable. In the hemiboreal forest zone in the Eastern Baltics, silver birch ( Roth.