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Britain’s tree species and forests are under threat frompests, pathogens and changing environmentalconditions due to climate change. At the same time,

a warmer climate may favour some tree species, whileinnovation in wood technologies and new markets for timber,especially in construction and bioenergy, is leading to moredemand for wood fibre. Society meanwhile places ever moredemands on our forests; their importance for health andrecreation is increasingly recognised, while the role of forestsin protecting us from environmental change, for example inreducing flooding or soil erosion, and managing carbonstocks, is the subject of much interest as steps are made invaluing ecosystem services.

Meeting these challenges and ensuring that we have arobust forest resource for the future requires many parallelactions. We need to manage our forests so that they aremore diverse, for example by encouraging more varied age

and stand structure and by introducing more geneticdiversity within tree species. Another action is to plant andmanage a greater diversity of tree species. Since the 1970sspecies choice has tended to become concentrated onrelatively few well-known species, but this pool of familiarspecies is diminishing as some become vulnerable to newpests and diseases. Yet previous generations of foresterswere familiar with a wider range of species and had accessto information complemented by local trials to help withspecies choice. Many of these additional species wereconifers introduced from abroad (only three native conifersmigrated into Britain after the last ice age), and those plantedon a modest scale were termed minor species. Experience ofother exotic species, including several broadleaves, wasmore experimental and these did not assume any specialuse in 20th century silviculture. Yet several of these speciesand the minor conifers have a role to play in diversification,

SilviFuture Promoting and sharing knowledge of novel forestspecies

Gabriel Hemery, Richard Jinks, Simon Lloyd, Jez Ralph andJohn Weir explain the concept behind an online network promotingand sharing knowledge about novel forest species, and encouragewoodland owners to get involved.

Alder (Common/Black)Alder (Green)Alder (Grey)Alder (Italian)Alder (Red)AshAspenBeechBirch (Downy)Birch (Silver)Cedar (Atlas)Cedar (Lebanon)Cherry (Wild)Chestnut (Sweet)

Cypress (Lawson)Cypress (Leyland)Douglas firElm (Wych)Eucalyptus (Cider gum)Eucalyptus (Shining gum)Fir (Caucasian silver)Fir (European silver)Fir (Grand)Fir (Noble)Fir (Pacific silver)Hemlock (Western)HornbeamLarch (European)

Larch (Hybrid)Larch (Japanese)Lime (Small-leaved)London planeMaple (Big-leaf)Maple (Norway)Maple (Silver)Oak (Pedunculate)Oak (Red)Oak (Sessile)Pine (Corsican)Pine (Lodgepole)Pine (Macedonian)Pine (Maritime)

Pine (Monterey/Radiata)Pine (Scots)Pine (Western White)Pine (Weymouth)Poplar (Balsam)Poplar (Black)Poplar (Hybrid)Red-cedar (Japanese)Red-cedar (Western)Redwood (Coast)Redwood (Giant)RowanService-tree (True)Service-tree (Wild)

Southern beech (Lenga)Southern beech (Rauli)Southern beech (Roble)Spruce (Norway)Spruce (Oriental)Spruce (Serbian)Spruce (Sitka)SycamoreWalnut (Black)Walnut (Common)

Table 1. Index of species (by common name) currently included in the SilviFuture database

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and in the current context we use the term novel species todescribe both groups.

There is a long history to the introduction of trees intoGreat Britain and the process gathered momentum from the16th century and reached a peak in the late 19th and early20th centuries. A surprising number of introduced specieshave been tested for potential use in forestry, but onlycomparatively few passed all the exacting requirementsneeded for an exotic to achieve widespread use. But someunderused species still have potential for wider use. Thetesting process tended to favour the best species at theexpense of those that were nearly just as good. Also pastlimitations to more widespread use of a species, such asregularity of seed supply, ease of propagation and utilisationof timber, may not now be so limiting. A good example iscoast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), which has beengrown in Britain for more than 150 years, and has provenresilient to climatic conditions here, even though verydifferent from their native California. Timber qualities are

excellent but the fibrous bark is not popular with processors.Past species testing has not only left us with a legacy of

knowledge, but also many stands and trial plots planted byresearchers, the Forestry Commission and private woodlandowners, including organisations such as the Royal ForestrySociety still remain. These are a useful resource for studyingthe comparative performance of different species. Many ofthese have been undocumented and the forestry sector as awhole has been unable to learn fully from the experiences ofresearchers and growers. The concept of an online databasewas developed, that would allow everyone with experience ingrowing these novel species to share both mensuration dataand silvicultural experiences. Named SilviFuture, the websitewas launched in autumn 2013.

SilviFutureSilviFuture is a network established to promote and shareknowledge about novel forest species across Britain.Created initially by a partnership between ForestryCommission, Forest Research, Silvanus Trust and the SylvaFoundation, and now supported by the Royal ForestrySociety, it aims to help promote information about novel treesand forest stands.

At its heart is a website (www.silvifuture.org.uk) and onlinedatabase that enables woodland owners and forestryprofessionals to add, search and share information of morethan sixty tree species, many of which are less well-known ortested in Britain. It supports:

l Finding and sharing information on the silviculture ofnovel tree species. Some of these may prove moreresilient to a changing climate or pests and diseases, andprovide valuable products for future markets.

l Exploring a database to learn about tree growth, standmanagement, where certain species grow well in thecountry, and even successes in their marketing. Thedatabase combines research data with real-life growingexperience.

l Searching for sites where novel species already grow,including searching with parameters such as latitude,altitude or aspect, to explore whether a species may besuitable for other sites.

Information on the growing potential and end uses ofthese species is provided, together with geographic

Features

Figure 1. A stand of Japanese red-cedar or sugi (Cryptomeriajaponica) growing at Brechfa in Carmarthenshire: planted 1957,yield class 20 m3 ha-1 yr-1. Many stems exhibited basal sweep butare being removed in thinning operations. Data for this stand havebeen uploaded to the SilviFuture website by Forest Research.

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information on forest locations in Britain. Forest Researchhave begun adding its data to the database, gathered fromdecades of research in field trials for many of these species.The first entries are concentrating on the Forest Gardens atKilmun in Argyll, Brechfa in Carmarthenshire, and Bedgeburyin Kent where series of species plots were planted during themiddle of the 20th century, but information from other trialplots will also be added. All the data can be interrogated on

a web-based database, complete with maps and furtherinformation.

The database is updated continually as new entries areadded by forest managers and woodland owners, and canbe searched by species or location to allow those thinking ofplanting a new species to fully evaluate its suitability, and forresearchers to see how species are performing across arange of locations.

Species included in theSilviFuture databaseInformation on the silviculture of more thansixty tree species is provided, many ofwhich are less well-known or tested inBritain (Table 1). Users can request otherspecies to be included so that new data canbe attributed to them. Many speciesconsidered novel have been growing inBritain for well over two hundred years –some are even native – but have never beenadopted widely by foresters. These areconsidered ‘novel’ in terms of theirsilviculture or marketing for forest productson any major commercial scale. Thesespecies may prove more resilient to achanging climate or pests and diseases,others may provide valuable products forfuture markets. In the right place, suchspecies can help diversify our forests toprovide a range of benefits to society andthe environment.

Learning from the databaseA complex database lies at the heart of theSilviFuture website, yet information ispresented to users on a simple databasepage that permits searches or queries on arange of parameters. A search by speciesand location can be made, and using the‘Advanced options’ permits particularkeywords to be entered to filter the data,such as ‘durable timber’ or ‘poor drainage’etc., plus a range of site data (e.g. altitude,aspect or soil) and mensuration data (e.g.tree height, dbh or stocking density). Basedon the parameters chosen a number ofrecords may be displayed, shown by icons

Figure 2. Screenshot of a search in the SilviFuture database in November 2013 for coastredwood (Sequoia sempervirens) revealed five results (top). Clicking on an entry, in thiscase the Charles Aker Redwood Grove at Leighton, reveals all data uploaded by the

owner and a map of the stand (bottom).

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Featureson a map. Clicking on any one of these will bring up a pagedetailing the facts available for a record (Figure 2).

The SilviFuture database results could be used inconjunction with the Ecological Site Classification (ESC)decision support system developed by Forest Research (seeFurther Reading). The ESC system is designed to match sitefactors — based on grid reference and soil type — with treespecies suitability. It also includes future climate changeprojections, making it a very powerful decision-making toolfor woodland owners looking to the future.

Uploading dataWoodland owners and managers, and all forestryprofessionals, are encouraged to register and uploadinformation. It is quite simple to set up a user account; anemail address and password is required. Users are asked toprovide as much information about a stand of trees aspossible, including the selected species, the year planted,height, dbh, yield class, stocking density and information onthinning and harvesting. This may well require a visit thestand beforehand if possible, not only to ensure that the datato be uploaded is current, but also to take a photograph thatwill help visitors to the website understand more about the

stand. In the first instance we would encourage owners tofocus on providing data on the more unusual novel species,for instance the cedars and redwoods, Japanese red-cedar,and southern beeches.

To date, a small number of private woodland owners haveuploaded data, and their data has been augmented byrecords provided by Forest Research from some of theForest Gardens across Britain. Forest Enterprise in Englandhas recently added over 100 records, and through thefinancial support of ‘ClimateXchange’ Scottish data is beingadded. It is hoped that soon more contributors from Scotlandand Wales, both public and private, will do likewise. The RFShas begun to upload data from its own woodlands, includingthe stand of coast redwoods at Leighton (Figure 3).

Future DevelopmentsWoodland owners and forestry professionals are encouragedto visit the website. The database is relatively new so thenumber of records on the system is relatively low at presentbut as forest owners and managers become aware of thedatabase and add new records, it should become a valuabletool.

Plans for the future development of the site depend on

Figure 3. A stand of coast redwood at the Charles Aker redwood grove at Leighton, owned by the Royal Forestry Society, and now entered onto the SilviFuture database (see Figure 2).

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availability of funding; it is hoped that some organisations orbusinesses may be willing to fund it in return for publicacknowledgement. Plans for immediate development workinclude adding a facility for users to upload photographs,and commenting tools.

The Royal Forestry Society is exploring the potential forbursaries that would provide support for forestry students tohelp private woodland owners add data to the site. This couldprovide valuable work experience for students and savewoodland owners time and effort to record their data. Ifwoodland owners are interested in taking up this idea, theyshould contact Simon Lloyd at the RFS.

Acknowledgements Funding from Forestry Commission England permitted thecreation of the website and database: www.silvifuture.org.uk.

Further readingEcological Site Classification Decision Support System (ESC) version 3.0:

www.forestry.gov.uk/esc Climate change impacts and adaptation in England’s woodlands:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/forestresearch.nsf/ByUnique/INFD-837EZY

England’s Woodland Management and Climate Change:www.forestry.gov.uk/climatechangeengland

SilviFuture website: www.silvifuture.org.uk

Dr Gabriel Hemery* is Chief Executive of the SylvaFoundation (www.sylva.org.uk).

Richard Jinks is a Project Manager in the Centre forSustainable Forestry and Climate Change, ForestResearch.

Simon Lloyd is Development Director for the RoyalForestry Society (www.rfs.org.uk)

Jez Ralph is Director of Timber Strategies(www.timberstrategies.com) and undertook this workthrough the Silvanus Trust (www.silvanus.org.uk)

John Weir is Adviser for Woodland creation andresilience for Forestry Commission England(www.forestry.gov.uk/climatechangeengland)

*Corresponding author: gabriel@sylva.org.uk