Ring shake and structural characteristics of a chestnut (Castanea sativa Miller) coppice stand in northern Piedmont (northwest Italy).

In a chestnut coppice located in Torre Canavese (Province of Turin) in northwest Italy, on a surface of 3 080 m2, a structural analysis of the population was carried out and, after coppicing, the frequency and distribution of ring shake in stems was studied. The aim of this work was to observe the presence of ring shake in shoots, stools and standards, and to evaluate the possible relationships existing between these data and those characterizing the individual stems, the individual stools and the entire population from the structural and typological standpoint. From the results, it emerges that 96.2% of standards and 37.9% of shoots are involved in the defect and only 51 % of stools present shoots with ring shake. The distribution of ring shake in the stems is concentrated in the middle third of the radius, and as much as 50% of the defect appears in correspondence with the growth rings for the years 1971, 1972 and 1973. The distribution of stools with shoots affected by ring shake is not uniform over the plot.