Enhancing chestnut coppices: silvicultural management and socio-economic context.

Castanea sativa is one of the most important species for timber production in Italy but, both management system, ownership type and wood chain structure, aren’t able to enhance enough the market value of wood assortments. Although the high demand of quality timber, the internal production is heavily reduced, mainly as far as timber quality is concerned and because of the lack of suitable timber sizes. In this context, experimental trials have been approached to identify and verify which silvicultural methods are best suited to reach high yields depending to the investments needed and the local socio-economical condition. Two technical approaches were evaluated: stand silviculture and single-tree oriented silviculture. As for the socio-economical aspects, a few demographic indexes have been examined and the first-phase processing enterprises acting in the concerned area were analyzed. The goals of this paper are to evaluate the biological response to the applied silviculture, to analyze the problems arisen and to estimate the applicability of the proposed methods in relation to the different socio-economic contexts. The research has been carried out in Tuscany in two important forest areas - Monte Amiata and Colline Metallifere - in young chestnut coppices characterized by an homogeneous stand density and a good site index. The two examined districts showed some similarities but they have mainly highlighted important differences about the social structure and concerns and enterprises characteristics. The area of Monte Amiata is typified by a higher residents density then the Colline Metallifere but only 1/3 of the population is employed in the agro-forest sector. In addition, in the Monte Amiata district most concerns are sized less than 2 hectares and chestnut is the main forest species. On the contrary, in the Colline Metallifere the agro-forest sector (57% of workers) is one of the main sources of income for the local communities and medium-sized concerns are noteworthy present. Chestnut stands have here a marginal role, oaks are dominant and the prevailing assortment is firewood. From a silvicultural viewpoint, both the studied areas showed a quite good potentiality, suitable