The season for active spruce bark beetles has now come to an end. A preliminary assessment shows that the spruce bark beetle killed almost seven million cubic metres of forest in 2020. According to Mellanskog the extent in Sweden is alarming with approximately 4.5 million cubic metres of damaged forest.
Mellanskog is an association of more 32,000 private forest owners in the heart of Sweden. Together they own more than 1.7 million hectares of forest land.
Most of spruce bark beetle attacks were concentrated in Södermanland, Västmanland, Närke and western Uppland in Sweden. There was also occasional extensive damage in Värmland, southern Dalarna, southern Gästrikland and northern and eastern Uppland.
Compared with last year, the roles have changed, the scope in Götaland seems to have halved at the same time as the damage in Svealand seems have doubled from last year.
The situation remains serious and Mellanskog is working hard to combat the spruce bark beetle and save the members’ timber values.
The association is working to fund new outlets for spruce bark-damaged wood, according to Mellanskog’s forest manager Matts Söderström. The official estimate of this year’s spruce bark beetle damage will be carried out by SLU in a nationally targeted damage inventory in Götaland and Svealand, which will take place during September – October.
The inventory uses all the National Forest Assessment’s permanent permanent areas in Götaland, excluding Gotland and Svealand, excluding Dalarna.
Mellanskog participated in this year’s extensive swarm monitoring together with the Swedish Forest Agency and others in a collaborative project Stop the Drills.
Several traps were placed with landowners in the Mellanskog area who emptied their traps every week and reported the number of drills.
The trap monitoring has been completed for the year and is has enabled the identification of a large swarm that occurred in early summer and the other that occurred in many places during August.
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