Cuticular and stomatal antechamber conductance to water vapour diffusion in picea abies (L.) karst.

http://www.ester.ee/record=b1185245~S58*es

PESFOR-W: Improving the design and environmental effectiveness of woodlands for water Payments for Ecosystem Services

ABSTRACT: The EU Water Framework Directive aims to ensure restoration of Europe?s water bodies to ?good ecological status? by 2027. Many Member States will struggle to meet this target, with around half of EU river catchments currently reporting below standard water quality. Diffuse pollution from agriculture represents a major pressure, affecting over 90% of river basins. Accumulating evidence shows that recent improvements to agricultural practices are benefiting water quality but in many cases will be insufficient to achieve WFD objectives. There is growing support for land use change to help bridge the gap, with a particular focus on targeted tree planting to intercept and reduce the delivery of diffuse pollutants to water. This form of integrated catchment management offers multiple benefits to society but a significant cost to landowners and managers. New economic instruments, in combination with spatial targeting, need to be developed to ensure cost effective solutions - including tree planting for water benefits - are realised. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are flexible, incentive-based mechanisms that could play an important role in promoting land use change to deliver water quality targets. The PESFOR-W COST Action will consolidate learning from existing woodlands for water PES schemes in Europe and help standardize approaches to evaluating the environmental effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of woodland measures. It will also create a European network through which PES schemes can be facilitated, extended and improved, for example by incorporating other ecosystem services linking with aims of the wider forestscarbon policy nexus

Supplementary materials to the article "Medicinal Plants in Semi-Natural Grasslands: Impact of Management"

The supplementary material contains (S1) species accumulation curves of different habitats based on species lists originating from https://dspace.emu.ee/xmlui/handle/10492/6300 and the Estonian Environmental Board database. Lists of Estonian MP species (S2) by each scenario are based on the following literature sources: Estonian Agency of Medicine. Ravimina Määratletud Raviomadustega Ainete ja Taimede Nimekiri; 2020 (access 25.11.2020) (scenario 1); Tammeorg, J.; Kook, O.; Vilbaste, G. Eesti NSV Ravimtaimed, 5th ed.; Valgus: Tallinn, Estonia, 1984 (scenario 2) and Raal, A. Maailma Ravimtaimede Entsüklopeedia; Estonian Encyclopaedia Publishers: Tallinn, Estonia, 2010; ISBN 978-9985-70-313-7 (scenario 3)

Quality Testing of Short Rotation Coppice Willow Cuttings

The production and feasibility of Short Rotation Coppice depend on cutting early performance. The shoot and root biomass production of Salix cuttings in hydroponic conditions was studied. The amount of sprouted biomass after four weeks of growth depended on cutting the diameter, but the original position of the cutting along the rod or number of visible buds was not in correlation with biomass produced. Application of mineral fertilizer or soil originating from the willow plantation did not increase the total production. On the contrary, the addition of soil tended to decrease biomass production and we assumed this was a result of a shortage of light. Under the influence of fertilization, plants allocated greater biomass to roots. Comparison of different clones revealed that those with S. dasyclados genes tended to allocate less biomass to roots and the poorest-performing clone in our experiment, also had the lowest wood production in the plantation. The number of visible buds on the cutting was also clone-specific

Medicinal Plants in Semi-Natural Grasslands: Impact of Management

Semi-natural grasslands (SNG) are valuable for their high biodiversity, cultural and landscape values. Quantitative information about medicinal plants (MP) in SNG facilitates the evaluation of ecosystem services of these habitats. Different literature sources were used to assess the ratio and frequency of MP species in several Estonian SNG and to evaluate the impact of management on these values. Lists of MP species according to different MP definition scenarios are available. The ratio of MP species in the local plant species list was the largest in alvars, followed by floodplain and wooded meadows. The average number of MP species in wooded meadows and alvars was about twice of that found in naturally growing broadleaved forest (according to the most detailed MP species list, 7.2, 7.8 and 4.3 plot−1, respectively). Fertilization of wooded meadows had no significant impact on MP species ratio, but decreased the percentage of MP biomass. Coastal meadows had few MP species and the impact of management quality depended on adopted MP scenarios. Comparison of Ellenberg indicator values revealed that MP species were more drought-tolerant, with higher commonness and more anthropophyte than the rest of studied grassland species

Development of an adaptive multi paddock grazing (AMPG) system suitable for Estonian climate conditions

Adaptive multi-pasture grazing (AMPG) has been shown to be able to increase pasture productivity and thus both animal performance and the economic performance of livestock enterprises. This grazing method is currently applied on more than 21 million hectares of pastures worldwide. Although it has been rapidly adopted in many countries, experience with AMPG in Estonia is still limited. In order to achieve this objective, this activity aims to gather information from research, literature and publications on what could be optimal AMPG management under Estonian conditions. A pilot period was carried out on 2 Estonian farms, and the species composition of pasture plants, forage value, soil density, earthworm species and total weight on the experimental grassland were studied