Plantations offer a high potential to respond to the increasing pressure on forests to deliver social, economic, and environmental services. Exotic tree species have a long history of use in plantation forestry, mostly because of their improved productivity compared with that of native species. Because of their impacts on land management and the environment, questions arise regarding the compatibility of exotic tree plantations with sustainable forest management (SFM), the overarching paradigm driving forest legislations in Canada. Our objectives were thus to i) briefly review the historical and current use of exotic tree species in Canada, ii) identify the social, economic and environmental issues related to the use of exotic tree species in Canadian forestry, based on sustainable forest management criteria, and iii) identify perspectives related to the use of exotic tree species in the sustainable management of Canadian forests. Results show that six out of ten Canadian provinces do not have specific legislations to control the use of exotic tree species for reforestation within their borders. The use of exotic tree species is mainly controlled through third-party certification agencies. Exotic tree species represent a small proportion of the planted seedlings in Canada and Norway spruce is the most common one. The use of exotic tree species is compatible with sustainable forest management criteria used in Canada, but forest managers must take into account several issues related to their use and maintain a social license to be entitled to plant them. Issues are highly dependent upon scale. The zoning of management intensity could provide environmental, economic and social benefits, but costs/benefits analyses should be carried out. The concept of naturalness could also be useful to integrate plantations of exotic species in jurisdiction where SFM strategies are based on ecosystem management principles. Monitoring of hybridization and invasiveness of exotic species must be included in landscape analyses to forestall loss of resilience leading to compromised structural and functional ecosystem states. The use of exotics species is recognized as a tool to sequester carbon and facilitate adaptation of forests to global changes, but it is necessary to carefully identified contexts where assisted migration is justified and disentangle planned novel ecosystems coherent with global changes generated by assisted migration from those emerging from invasive species forming undesired states.

The three major functions of a potting medium for plant production is to provide support, to retain water and nutrients, and to allow oxygen diffusion to the roots. A potting medium should meet the requirements of practical plant production such as: to be available and ready at all times, easy to handle, lightweight and to produce uniform plant growth. Constituents such as natural soil, peat, sand, perlite and vermiculite are commonly used as substrates for container plant production. Nevertheless, these materials might be fully or partially replaced by various organic or inorganic wastes, thus achieving environmental and economic benefits. This study presents a synthesis of results extracted from many trials on waste materials as potting media substitutes for the seedlings production of the following native plant species: Pinus halepensis, Quercus ilex, Quercus macropleis and Ceratonia siliqua. The studied waste materials were either organic or inorganic components including: spoils of peridotite, raw rice hulls, coconut fiber and kenaf (the ground stem of the plant H. cannabinus L). The experimental potting media tested were: peat:perlite (3:1), a common medium used for seedling production, peat:spoils of peridotite (3:1), peat:rice hulls (3:1), peat:rice hulls (1:1), peat:coconut fiber (1:1), kenaf (100%) and kenaf:peat:rice hulls (3:1:1). The main physical (water retention characteristics, bulk density, particle density, total porosity) and chemical (N, K, Ca, Mg, soluble P, exchangeable cations, pH and loss on ignition) properties of each potting medium were measured. For each plant species the following seedling quality parameters were assessed: morphological characteristics (shoot height, root collar diameter), shoot and root biomass, Dickson's quality index and shoot and root nutrient concentrations. Then seedlings were planted in the field and their survival and growth was monitored. The feasibility of replacing peat or perlite with various waste materials as well as their effect on seedling quality and field performance are discussed.

Over the past five decades, researchers in the southern United States have been working with nursery managers to develop ways to reduce the cost of producing seedlings. In this regard, the Southern Forest Nursery Management Cooperative (at Auburn University in Alabama) has helped reduce hand-weeding costs and losses due to nematodes and disease. As a result, nursery managers are able to legally use a variety of registered herbicides and fungicides for use in pine and hardwood seedbeds. Other changes over the last three decades include a reduction in the number of nurseries growing seedlings, a reduction in the number of seedlings outplanted per ha, an increase in the number of container nurseries, an increase in the average production per nursery, an increase in production by the private sector, growing two or more crops after fumigation, the development of synthetic soil stabilizers, applying polyacrylamide gels to roots and the use of seedling bags and boxes for shipping seedlings.

The concern for environmental protection has existed since the time of first human civilization. As society develops, the chain of changes during the natural flow of processes in ecosystems has been supplemented by a new link – pollutants. They have an effect on all other members of the ecosystem (changes may be visible immediately or harder to spot), which leads to an extremely complex relationship with nature. The values of some parameters of pollutants reached an alarmingly high level. The tendency to reduce the risk of air, soil, water, plant, and animal pollution to a tolerable limit, which would salvage the environment and most importantly human health, became a global problem. Heavy metals as pollutants have been an interest of researchers for their conduct, especially in forest ecosystems, which has been expressed in the previous year's more than ever. With its numerous toxic effects, heavy metals are endangering the existence of plant species that live in already contaminated environments. This is all an argument regarding the fight of modern society that the emission of polluted materials gets reduced in order to avoid multiple negative effects, which can endanger the existence of living organisms in general, as an argument for the continuation of numerous researches that are conducted in this area. The monitoring of heavy metals is of significant importance because their toxicity and accumulations are vital for the ecosystem. Polluted soils can be reduced and they can restore their function using physical, chemical, and biological techniques. Physical and chemical methods are very expensive and cause mainly irreversible changes, thus destroying biological variety. The biological recovery of contaminated soil represents an efficient method of reducing health risks for both mankind and the ecosystem.  For this purpose, biological indicators are used. Numerous researches have led to improvements of the initial idea about using plants as a remediation of the environment and the removal of different contaminants from contaminated medias into promising technologies of environmental protection under the title “Phytoremediation”. This technology consists of the reduction of concentrations of polluted materials in polluted soils, water, or air. Plants have the ability to store, degrade, or eliminate metals, pesticides, solutions, explosives, and crude oils. Its derivatives and various other contaminants form mediums that contain them. This paper especially considers methods of the possibility of the usage and application of plants in restoring soil contaminated by heavy metals as well as other pollutants.  

As a consequence of past deforestation, degraded areas in Italy have been subjected to afforestation since the beginning of the XXI century. These afforestations have been done mainly with conifers (Pinus nigra, Pinus pinaster, Pinus halepensis, Pinus pinea), and with the aim to 1) protect the soil and to 2) prevent floods. Exotic forest tree species have been used for the afforestation of selected sites of the Apennine. In the case of Douglas fir, it is possible to state that after ninety years the results are very good in terms of both ecological adaptability and high growth-rate.

Nowadays, the lack of silvicultural treatments, the ageing processes, insect and fungi outbreaks have led pine afforestations to a condition of an unsteady biological equilibrium in many sites. Moreover, this condition seems to be due to additional factors related to climate change such as wind storms and dryness. The restoration of these pine afforestations is therefore one of the main aims of the present Italian forest management policy which aims to increase their level of resilience. In particular, the priority of the researchers has been given to the most fragile stands where three possible objectives of restoration measures should be considered:

1. To rehabilitate conifer stands by introducing native broadleaves when these stands are in a very degraded condition, and when the local wood energy chain needs to be started;

2. To conserve the conifer stands in the cases where the cultural, aesthetic and recreational functions, are the prevailing obtainable ecosystem services;

3. To foster the mixed stands, with the conifers of the old cycle and native broadleaves, which could increase resilience to the extreme events.

In regards of Douglas-fir stands, new silvicultural models have been developed which aim to a) conserve these stands and to b) combine a higher growth rate with a much improved mechanical tree stability.

The afforestation of bare lands, sandstone, and skeletal terrains are one of the biggest challenges forestry scientists face. These terrains are characterized by specific ecological conditions that are generally unfavorable for the growth of woody species. These are usually shallow soils, unstable, and poor in nutrients and moisture. The characteristics of these habitats make said terrains unfavorable for the regeneration of forest vegetation. It is therefore crucial for the success of afforestation to gain detailed knowledge and understanding of environmental conditions. Only after the detailed research and study of field conditions can the selection of species for afforestation, including selection of species characteristics and technology of planting, begin. Mistakes made during previous establishments of green areas are one of the main reasons some species of vascular flora have disappeared. This alone expresses the undeniable importance of knowledge on habitat specifics, work schedule, and selection of species for afforestation. With the aim to implement the future afforestation within the planned scope, it is necessary to organize an effective nursery production of seedlings with characteristics that will suit the environmental conditions of bare lands, sandstones, and skeletal terrains whose afforestation is planned.

"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now." Chinese proverb There are five million hectares of new forests planted each year, according to Global Forest Resources Assessment (FAO 2015). How successful are we in planting these new forests? What are challenges that practitioners meet today in planting forests? What are challenges that forests established today will face in decades to come? There is a myriad of research results and a body of knowledge large enough to understand principles behind the field performance of planted forests. The environment is dynamic and inputs and outputs continually change, so there is a constant need for new research ranging from the global to microsite scale, and from the ecosystem and species to the population and genotype scale. The journal Reforesta offers a new site for publishing research results, presenting experiences, and bringing forward novel ideas and discussions on reforestation issues. Reforesta editors will strive to combine academic excellence with professional relevance and wish to appeal to both the professional and academic communities. There are a large number of scientific journals, many of which deal with forest ecosystems. So a reasonable question could be: Do we need yet another professional journal? We say yes, because of the following reasons. Reforesta will be a "niche" journal, focusing on research stemming from sourcing seed, to nursery cultural operations, to field planting (e.g., afforestation, reforestation and forest restoration). In addition, Reforesta will cover topics of forest genetics, tree breeding, and stand silviculture. We will encourage the submission of papers that provide interest and value to the international readership dealing with planted forests, such as: 1) novel ideas or approaches to reforestation challenges; 2) connections between plant ecophysiology and seedling field performance; 3) testing of new techniques and products in production of forest reproductive material, and at the planting site; and 4) reviews and discussions on timely and important topics. Establishment of the new journal can be compared to establishing a new forest. Initiation of the Reforesta journal will be supported by the editorial team (i.e. planning and site-species or site-provenance matching). The team will then select appropriate papers from the contributions of willing authors (i.e. selection of planting material, nursery operations, and culling). Then the stage is set: the web-site is operational; the journal is registered and applied for indexing (i.e. site preparation, monitoring and feedback). The inaugural issue is published (i.e. seedlings are planted) and the research community is notified (i.e. post-planting silviculture operations). The parallel between Reforesta and establishing a new forest will continue. The future success of Reforesta will be dependent on the interaction with its contributors and readership. The future size of the Reforesta audience will be dependent on its ability to secure its niche, and to provide services to the professional forestry community, while developing a symbiotic relationship with other forestry journals (i.e. competition and/or facilitation). Performance of Reforesta will be measured by monitoring readership and response levels (i.e. reforestation success) and its lifespan will be defined by its resilience and adaptation potential. Reforesta will follow the open access policy of non-profit journals, with no processing charges applied to any accepted articles and no fees for accessing articles published by Reforesta. This principle ensures that forest research is free and available to forestry professionals in support of a greater global exchange of knowledge. Like planted forests, Reforesta hopes to grow in an open environment with appropriate tending from the editorial team, thereby growing with needs of the professional forestry community. The Reforesta journal has one additional advantage. It is established solely on the enthusiasm of the editorial team. As long as there are enthusiasts recognizing the need for Reforesta, the journal will continue to flourish. The editorial team is here to set the scientific standards and ethical rules for the journal. However, the ultimate direction of Reforesta depends on authors and readership. We are delighted to launch this new journal, a product of a joint venture between enthusiasts ranging from undergraduate students to senior researchers and scientists. Reforesta has one underwriting sponsor - The Scientific and Professional Society Reforesta. We thank them for their support. Under the leadership of Vladan Ivetić, Editor-In-Chief, who initiated the idea for Reforesta, and Steven Grossnickle, Consultant-Editor who plays a supporting role; we have a worthy team. The inaugural issue of the Reforesta journal is in form of Thematic Proceedings resulting from the International Conference on Reforestation Challenges, which took place on 3-6 June 2015 in Belgrade, Serbia. We wish to thank participants who attended the Conference and especially thank the invited authors who contributed to this inaugural issue. We are also grateful to the technical team, made up of excellent young students and researchers. We will continue to develop and fine-tune content to enhance the quality, scope and diversity of Reforesta as the journal grows into an established member of the professional forestry community. 

In this nursery experiment, 100 one-year-old northern red oak seedlings were measured at the end of the 2016 growing season. Measured growth elements were: total height, root collar diameter and total leaf area. All seedlings were classified according to the presence of polycyclism into four types: one-flush growth, two-flush growth, three-flush growth, and four-flush growth type. The number of new flushes (shoots) is a good indicator of total height, root collar diameter and total leaf area. 

This article focuses on the creation of seed sources for forest planting or seeding with a special focus on clonal seed orchards supporting planting Norway spruce and Scots pine in Sweden. Supporting long-term breeding and low input breeding is discussed. The focus is not on clonal forestry, although this is discussed. Natural regeneration is not dealt with and provenance choice only briefly. It is not a manual or literature review and focus on my own evaluations, but more detailed reviews can be found in the literature cited. It is intended to contribute some familiarity with many of the relevant genetic aspects on forest plantations.

In the keynote, major reforestation challenges in Scandinavia will be highlighted. The following countries make up Scandinavia: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. For Iceland, with only a forest cover of 2%, a major reforestation challenge is the deforestation and overgrazing in combination with land degradation and extensive soil erosion. The challenges include the conflicts with livestock farmers. For centuries the commons were used for sheep and horse grazing. However, more and more of farmer grazing land have been fenced up, allowing the regeneration of birch and plantations of other species to increase. With a forest cover of 37% and 69% respectively, for decades a major reforestation challenge in Norway and Sweden has been the risk of seedling damages from the pine weevil. Unprotected seedlings can have a survival rate of less than 25% after being planted. Pine weevils feed on the bark of planted young seedlings at regeneration sites. If the seedling is girdled, it will not survive. In Sweden, and soon in Norway, pesticides have been forbidden. In the keynote, new methods and technology will be presented based on non-chemical protection. In Finland, with a forest cover of 75%, a major reforestation challenge is linked to the forest structure. The structure of Finnish forestry includes many private forests in combination with small regeneration sites. This implies a situation where logistics and methods for lifting and field storage provide a major challenge in order to preserve seedling quality until the planting date. Due to this situation, new logistic systems and technologies are being developed in Finland, including new seedling cultivation programs (including cultivation under Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)) to match the access of fresh planting stock to different planting dates. In Denmark, with a forest cover of 13%, a major reforestation challenge is the possibility of future plantations based on a wide range of relevant species. For this to become a realistic option, new methods and technology have to be developed in reforestation activities that support this possibility. These methods and technology should make it possible to not be limited to certain species due to problems and restrictions during field establishment. This due to the prospect of establishing stable, healthy, and productive stands of various forest species that can be adapted to future climate change.