Local chronology of Common horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum L.), BU

Local chronology of Common horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum L.), BULocation of the research area: BUK - BU (53.4937872 N, 14.3575283 E, 22 m above sea level), NW Poland (about 0.4 km east from the Polish-German border, and about 10 km to the north-west of Szczecin city limits), on a morainic plateau composed of Last Glacial sediments, in a typically agricultural landscape. Common horse-chestnut trees growing along a 400 m section of a public road in a village of Buk in Dobra Commune in West Pomerania Province. The trees were planted on both sides of the road, forming an avenue. From both sides, the avenue is surrounded by farmland. Samples were taken using Pressler drills, at a level of 1.3 m above ground. The chronology, code-named BU, was compiled based on dendrochronological curves derived from 22 trees. The BU chronology spans 137 years from 1880 to 2016, however, only for the period 1901-2016 (116 years) the chronology is made up of 10 or more samples (EPS>0.85). This indicates that the trees were about 145 years old, and the avenue was planted in the 1880s. Mean TRW (tree-ring width) was 3.54 mm, for individual trees: 2.22-4.31 mm. In 2000 Common horse-chestnut trees were infested by the insect pest horse-chestnut leaf miner (HCLM).