Reconstruction of Resin Collection History of Pine Forests in Korea from Tree-Ring Dating

Abstract

Resin is one of the traditional non-timber forest products in the Republic of Korea. In order to investigate the chronological activity of resin collection, the wounds/cuts on red pines (Pinus densiflora) were dated using a tree-ring analysis technique. Additionally, the size of the trees in the resin collection years and the present conditions of the trees were investigated to verify the tree conditions and the size of wounds. Eighty-eight red pines distributed over nine sites in the Republic of Korea were selected to extract increment cores and investigate the wound size. Through the tree-ring analysis, the trees with big wounds (24.7 × 104.7 cm) made via panel hacksaw method were dated in the range 1938–1952, whereas small wounds (40.2 × 20.9 cm) made via the conventional chisel method were dated between 1956 and 1973. Moreover, the red pines thicker than 20.0 cm were the ones that were used for resin collection. Furthermore, the wounds created by the conventional chisel were healed with time, whereas the ones formed via the panel hacksaw method still required long times for healing. The large wounds had the advantage of supplying a large amount of resin, but this was temporary. On the other hand, the smaller wounds formed via the traditional chisel method could generate resin for a longer time and heal faster.

The Effects of CO2 Enrichment on the Radial Growth of Pinus densiflora

“…This result is possibly due to an effect of climate. It is known that the same tree species growing under similar climatic conditions show a similar inter-annual growth pattern due to their high dependency on climate (Choi et al, 2020;Schweingruber, 1998;Seo et al, 2019Seo et al, , 2021. So, the sudden decrease of tree-ring growth in 2018 may be due to the effect of high summer temperature which was the warmest summer according to the meteorological data measured till 2021 in Korea (https://data.kma.go.kr/climate/).…”

Summer climate information recorded in tree-ring oxygen isotope chronologies from seven locations in the Republic of Korea

“…Tree rings typically provide annual information on the growth duration of a tree, and therefore, have been used as a significant indicator in a variety of studies, such as tree adaptation, forest events, dating, and climate reconstruction (Fritts, 1976;Speer, 2010). Apart from the traditional tree-ring width, other ring parameters, such as stable isotopes, density, and cells have also been used in many studies (Fritts et al, 1991;Kirdyanov et al, 2008;Choi et al, 2020b;Siegwolf et al, 2020;Park et al, 2021;Chen et al, 2023;Lopez-Saez et al, 2023;Xu et al, 2023). One advantage of using the tree-ring width is that it allows simple and straightforward method of analysis.…”

Climatically induced anomalies in tree-ring structure of Abies pindrow (Royal ex D. Don) and Taxus baccata (L.) growing in Hindu-Kush mountainous region of Pakistan

“…Besides, carbon metabolism and sugar metabolizing enzymes are also involved in earlywood and latewood transition in conifers (Traversari et al 2022). As natural archives, tree rings provide proxy data for paleo-environmental studies, to analyze ecological issues and reconstructions of past climate (Choi et al 2020).…”