mystery of Gryfino solved 
From 16 - 19 October 2004, by the National Association of School Geographers Regional Group Rostock-a training trip in the northern region of Poland. In connection with the treatment of National Park "Lower Oder Valley" and the visit of the city Gryfino, situated on the eastern slope of the Oder valley, was also the object of the so-called "riddle of Gryfino" using the collected expertise to brighten the field trip participants and closer to a solution to bring. What is this "mystery"?
Surrounded by a 45 - year-old pine stand on a sandy terraces of the eastern Odertalhanges, about 7 miles south of downtown Gryfino, near the road 31 to play in an area of about 1,500 m², the trees growing here seems crazy.
your bizarre and snake-shaped growth, which reminded frequently to an upside-standing question mark contrasts so sharply with the rest of "normal" forest that visit quite a few visitors to the national parks of this phenomenon and in the attempt to explain this phenomenon expire, the wildest speculations. (It states, inter alia, from the refined Breeding special curved wood, of tragic natural disasters and the magical powers of speech)
contrast, the field trip participants came as a result of a detailed discussion site to the following conclusions: 1. The small-scale expression of specific growth area in the middle of a completely normal population and the spatial randomness of the snake from exogenous growth forms include soil factors (soil flow, wind) as the cause. Since all the trees of the overall population are equally healthy and strong, can also a local poisoning of the soil or wind or snow damage are excluded. 2. The stem diameter growth of trees with snake are slightly lower than the normal population, in its current height, it is compared with the normal population makes up only a very small negative difference. All trees with snake growth in common is that they have a stump about 40 cm high, equal in strength as the normal population and from the side-usually a rare, two-schlangenwüchsigen of such strains is outgrown. The upper end of the stump is level now and has not yet growths curvature, so that it can be assumed with great probability that it is caused by sawing off the young tree above the lowest Astreihe. 3. From the arrangement of the felling gets and from the small differences in Height and diameter growth between normal and special stock can justify the assumption that the current capping of the snake is growing trees comes at a time, as the stock of an approximately 6 - 8 year old was spared. 4. The one fact that this measure has left a big hole in the conservation and has remained unique in this stock, speaks for an extraordinary and probably spontaneous decision. Furthermore, as the young trees have been cut planar, ie if a young tree was cut or not, depended less on its quality, but more of his membership of the plot, which was scheduled to deforestation, resulting all observations put together the following scenario. In the period from the mid to late sixties, has been compiled in a winter, a greater charge of Christmas trees. Presumably in the near Szczecin in the winter, the Christmas tree supply so short of demand remained, that was short notice to do that with young pines a good business (the present writer remembers well that in a winter this time period because of a very early and extraordinarily snowy winter slump hundreds of thousands of Christmas trees in the Thuringian Forest and the Erzgebirge are stayed and he be content with a young Kiefer) had, before we deal with the special by the type of precipitation hervorgerufenem snake growth of employment by mature pines, we address the question of why the former owner or authorized worker has ever chosen this particular method of deforestation. If you look around a bit in the forestry literature, one comes soon, that this "cut down on the floor" in Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th Century was a common method. This was in contrast to the high-forest and bat operation, in which only assessed the building and firewood, the production target, a form of operation, which was a combination of timber breeding and agriculture, and in Germany as a tree field economics or forest field Construction Management been designated. The forestry component of these types of operation was the so-called "low-forestry", which is limited to deciding capable deciduous trees (willow, oak, linden, alder). These were planted on suitable sites in such large number of intervals that you could use the space in between as grain or pasture. After 10 to 40 years young forest has been cut down completely (but carved on the floor) and then tapered by coppice. Now, you could at regular intervals (pasture 1-2 years, 15-20 years of oak, alder 20-30 years) the re-grown shoots than timber harvesting (eg, willow, oak bark for Gerblohe, Linde and alder for as household appliances). As for that use the re-grown young woods sufficient or necessary were, one could use the acceleration effect of the full harvest cycles through coppice. These relationships must have been too (known to the forest owners in Gryfino. This was that he removed the Christmas trees so that a stock has stopped with one or two side shoots (not our native conifers are crucial capable), he has indeed a later just grown High strain waived, but backed by the volume of timber produces the approximate balance with the rest of the flock to slash production. The necessary condition here for a pine tree, to secure the outgrowth from the floor over an existing side shoots, is also both a cause for the strange-looking snake growth of so growing up a tree, its shape wealth is decisive by the interplay of three factors - the length growth of a tree is oriented in the gravitational force of the Earth ( geotropism). Ideally, a tree is upright and thus in the balance. - Even stronger-tree growth is determined by the orientation for maximum light output for its foliage-controlled (heliotropism). In particular in dense stands trying to increased growth in length and possible changes in direction, the existing light yield improve or maintain. - Geo-and heliotropism be realized by the growth in length and stabilized by the growth in thickness and solidified, d h.. all completed directional changes are irreversible. In our case, there is the first major arc of the seemingly upside-down question mark in that the side left standing after a short drive seeks further growth to come in the vertical direction of growth. Two different forces but soon force him to continue the curvature of the gravity axis addition, the one's own weight and the other decreasing light yield on the side facing the neighbors (to catch up this complicated movement also explains why the time felled in the area, because each floor-standing alone would have been a chance in the middle of an 8-year-older Wetikampf conservation in order to have enough light it). Everything else has gave rise to the microsite differences between the competing trees and their constant changes in the course of the "catch-up growth." In particular, for the edge of the former clearing standing young trees was enough of the above-described first curvature arch is usually not enough to grow normally on to. As they had to deal with much larger neighbors, they were forced by additional turns and direction changes its viability secure. Thus, proving the so-called. Gryfino riddle of 'as a unique and privileged object in the landscape of the lower Oder valley. which recalls not only a business-minded and intelligent users "but also an almost-forgotten forest farming system - above all in the innovative application of a pine forest back to life.
Dr. Heinz Niemann Siggelkow
