NATIONAL POPLAR AND WILLOW COMMISSION Bucharest, Sector 2, Petricani Street, No. 9A, Postal Code: 023841 Tel +4 021 317 10 05 Fax +4 021 316 84 28 COUNTRY REPORT APRIL 2016 Activities Related to Poplar and Willow Cultivation and Utilization during the Period 2012 - 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. POLICY AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................. 1 Sectoral Legislation ................................................................................................... 1 Public Policies and Financing Instruments ............................................................... 2 II. TECHNICAL INFORMATION .............................................................................. 3 1. Identification, Registration and Varietal Control .................................................. 3 2. Production Systems and Cultivation ..................................................................... 4 3. Genetics, Conservation and Improvement .......................................................... 12 4. Forest Protection .................................................................................................. 13 5. Harvesting and Utilization................................................................................... 15 6. Environmental Applications ................................................................................ 16 III. GENERAL INFORMATION ............................................................................... 17 1. Administration and Operation of the National Poplar Commission or equivalent Organization ............................................................................................................ 17 2. Literature ............................................................................................................. 18 3. Relations with other countries ............................................................................. 18 4. Innovations not included in other sections .......................................................... 18 IV. SUMMARY STATISTICS (Questionnaire) ......................................................... 19 I. POLICY AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK I. POLICY AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK Sectoral Legislation In Romania, the forestry sector is an extremely developed area of interest, with economic, social and environmental implications. The surface of the national forest fund as at 31/12/2014 covered an area of 6.54 million hectares, of which there were 6.38 million hectares actually occupied by forest, the difference being represented by other uses (Source – National Institute of Statistics, http://www.insse.ro/). Cultivation and utilisation of wood from poplar and willow species is subscribed to the sectoral regulatory general framework. Management of areas comprised in the national forest fund is based on laws, government decisions, orders of the appropriate authority, instructions, technical recommendations etc., of which the most relevant are the following: a) Law no. 46/2008 – Forest Code – comprises basic regulations regarding the management of the forest fund, forest planning, biodiversity conservation, regeneration and care of forests, guarding and protection of the forest fund, fire prevention and extinction, wood exploitation, scientific research, liabilities and sanctions; b) Law no. 107/2011 on the Marketing of forest reproductive materials; c) Decision no. 924/2015 for the approval of the Regulation to capitalize wood mass from the public property forest fund d) Decision no. 470/2014 for the approval of Rules on the provenance, movement and marketing of wood materials, at the regime of warehouse of wood materials and of installations to process roundwood, as well as of measures to apply the (EU) Regulation no. 995/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2010 laying down the obligations of operators who place timber and timber products on the market. e) Law no. 171/2010 on the Stabilisation and sanctioning of forest contraventions f) Order 1.648/2000 on the approval of Technical rules regarding compositions, layouts and forests regeneration technologies and afforestation of degraded lands. Page 1 I. POLICY AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK g) Law no. 100/2010 on Afforestation of degraded lands Public Policies and Financing Instruments In addition to the existing legislative framework, the development of the forest sector in Romania is based on a series of programmatic documents, with short, medium and long-term impact, approved or being in different stages on the approval circuit. Some of these documents are visionary documents, providing concrete objectives for the forestry sector and measures to reach them, others are financing instruments circumscribed to the set goals. Among the most important documents of this type, we recall: a) The National Forest Strategy – 2013 – 2022, a document being under public debate, prior to the approval. The strategy comprises measures of the areas covered by woods, without having a distinct component regarding the fast-growing species; b) The National Rural Development Programme 2007 – 2014, a document that provided by Measure 121 the possibility to finance some private projects for the modernisation of agricultural farms, including “Investment for the establishment of forestry species with short production cycle and vegetative regeneration, for the production of renewable energy”, within the limit of EUR 700,000, with a share from 40% to 70% grant from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. c) The National Rural Development Programme 2014 – 2020, a document which provides by Submeasure 8.1 - Afforestation and creation of wood areas the possibility of private beneficiaries to obtain a grant for the afforestation of agricultural and non- agricultural lands as premiums for the installation and maintenance of crops, as well as a compensation of incomes that would have been obtained by the use of lands in agriculture. The Submeasure provides the realisation of woods, but does not distinctly consider the creation of woods from fast-growing species. d) The program to improve environmental quality for the afforestation of degraded lands, ecological restoration and sustainable management of forests considered the financing of degraded lands afforestation projects, unfit for agricultural uses, belonging to administrative-territorial units. There was no distinct component for the financing of afforestation projects with fast-growing species. Page 2 II. TECHNICAL INFORMATION II. TECHNICAL INFORMATION 1. Identification, Registration and Varietal Control Providing identification, registration and varietal control is under the incidence of Law 107/2011 on the production, sale and import of forest reproductive materials. According to these laws, the National Catalogue of Basic Materials is annually approved, on categories, species and regions of origin and comprises the description details and the number/unique identification code of each source unit. The basic material is included in the National Catalogue of Basic Materials, for each source- unit only one number/code being assigned. The identity of forest reproductive materials is provided by the Identity certificate which is a form with a special regime containing security elements, is multiplied by the care of the authority and is made available to the persons authorised with certification. Throughout the production process, the manufacturer of each batch of forest reproductive material is obliged to ensure its identity and identification by drawings, as the case may be, plates, signs, labels. The list of cultivars / clones of poplar currently admitted in the crop in Romania, are presented in the table below: Table no. 1 Year of admission in Crt. no. Cultivar/Clone Country of origin crop 1 Robusta RO-16 Romania 1961 2 Robusta RO-118 Romania 1961 3 Marilandica RO-26 Romania 1961 4 Regenerata Celei Romania 1961 5 I-214 Italy 1963 6 Sacrau 79 Austria 1972 7 I-154 Italy 1976 8 I 45/51 Italy 1976 9 I 69/55 (Lux) Italy 1976 10 Triplo Italy 1993 11 Toropogritzki Ukraine 1993 12 Turcoaia Romania 2003 Page 3 II. TECHNICAL INFORMATION In what concerns willows, the selected clones admitted in production were obtained in Romania at the Bucharest Forest Research and Management Institute and have the following identification codes: - Salix alba L. ‘RO-201’, ‘RO-202’, ‘RO-204’, ‘RO-326’, ’RO-334’, ‘RO-346’, ‘RO- 892’; - S. alba x S. fragilis ‘RO-921’; - S. fragilis x S. matsudana ‘RO-1077’, ‘RO-1082’. At the International Poplar Commission three cultivars of poplar from Romania are registered, respectively Populus x canadensis ‘Oltenița’, ‘Argeș’, and ‘Celei’. In the table below is presented the basic materials for producing the forest reproductive materials (table no. 2) Table no. 2 Crt. Basic material (ha) Species no. Selected Qualified Total 1 Populus alba L. 94.00 94.00 2 Populus nigra L. 18.95 18.95 3 Populus ssp. 44.61 44.61 4 Salix ssp. 9.54 9.54 Total 112.95 54.15 167.10 During the period 2012 - 2015 no proposals were made for the registration of new cultivars of poplars or willows. 2. Production Systems and Cultivation In Romania, the crop of poplars and willows is generally practiced on lands located in the interior river valleys and in the Danube meadow and Danube Delta. These areas of crop largely represent the natural area of indigenous poplars and willows. After 1965 and until 1989, there was a genetically ameliorated poplars and willows extension policy, most of the natural stands being replaced by plantations with