There is another very significant factor in thinning, especially regarding spruce. If we intensively thin a young spruce stand, it branches out later on. If a spruce has not branched, red deer cannot reach the trunk. Branching protects spruce trunks against damage from red deer. The fact that we allow the spruce to keep its branches for a long time does not lower the value of the timber.

At one time, there was a misunderstanding – how could one possibly thin young birch and spruce stands to the number of trees per hectare that we are now accustomed to? When we left only a thousand birch trees per hectare, it was recorded as a breach of the law.

However, five years later, the sample plots showed that the more we had thinned, the more stable and robust the trees were. We concluded that upon reaching a height of ten metres, the optimal option is 1,200 trees per hectare. Forest owners must understand that the main goal is not the number of trees, but their quality.