Activities

As a result of several national and international research projects in these areas, the ForChange group has developed several tools to support forest management. Considerable efforts have been put into the development of growth and yield models that have been integrated in stand and regional forest level simulators. Mostly of these tools are available for free and oriented to practitioners (foresters and forest owners). One of these resources, named Webcorky, is a forecast tool dedicated to oak cork (Quercus Suber) and it helps to estimate growth and yields, considering the cork as the main product.

Additional information

WebCorky is a tool that allows the estimation of cork calibre evolution based on different cork samples and value of the production. The objective is to help producers to decide the optimal year to debark (delaying harvest or not) their cork oak stands. The model runs with basic data, which are very easy to collect by the producer. Those are for example, average cork prices, current thickness of some cork samples or estimated production (in percentage) of each cork category/quality. The results are graphics and tables indicating the expected growth of the production per year. This estimate, together with the incorporated prices, allows the calculation of yields, thus making easier to decide on the best moment for debarking. This year should be when the “value” of the cork starts to decrease in the projection.

The tool is also suitable for new or inexperienced producers. For instance, the thickness classification is done according to the industrial norms and works with default entry data values, which can be be adjusted by the user. Thus, in the absence of a own detailed category classification, the application has an estimated distribution, hence allowing the calculation of the average value of the cork along the projected years, based of a price table, which is also editable by the user.

Although the WebCorky simulator was developed for Portugal, it’s might be useful for other countries, as quality norms are quite standard and the required entry data are site independent, related only to current prices and tree cork thickness. The tool is available in Portuguese and English.