New technologies for cultivation of industrial forest crops in the subtropical zone of western Georgia.

Despite the fact that Georgia belongs to a number of countries rich in forested areas, the effective use of wood resources is very limited and cannot meet the demand for wood in the country even minimally. For a country with such a mountainous terrain and difficult orographic conditions, such as Georgia, forest wood is not the most important forest product, because other components of the multifaceted importance of forest resources gain much more state importance in the development of public production. In this regard, first of all, the ecological functions of mountain forests deserve special attention, in particular, soil-protective, water-regulating, anti-erosion water-protective, anti-avalanche, sanitary-hygienic, agro-forestry-improvement functions of forest ecosystems and others. The need to find alternative ways to prevent the deterioration of the protective functions of mountain forests and to meet the systematically growing demand for forest wood products of the country is on the agenda. In this regard, the creation of industrial plantations of fast-growing, valuable forest varieties with high technical properties, especially introduced plant species, is of particular importance. Slow growth is a big drawback for woody forest species used in industrial plantations since the plant's growth rate and the ability to quickly accumulate biomass are highly dependent on the selection of the plant species used for the plantation, soil fertility, and a well-developed root system. Therefore, the next step in the implementation of high-performance forestry plantations is the selective selection of fast-growing woody plants with high technical properties. Guided by scientifically based methods of optimal frequency of planting, we developed an appropriate model for growing promising, highly productive, fast-growing forest crops in the slightly swampy area of Kolkheti in the forest-crop districts. Using new progressive technology to create highly productive plantation of valuable fast-growing woody species (poplars, oriental sycamore, Liriodendron-tulip tree and others) in the weakly swampy area of the Kolkheti lowlands, in our experiments, the total production of wood worth 3-3.5 times more than from the local plant species was obtained for each hectare of forest plantation of the industrial purpose plantation of the above-mentioned new plant species. Ref. 12.