# An Overview of the Current Situation of European Poplar Cultures with a Main Focus on Hungary
## 3 Results and Discussion  
Taking into account the poplar stocks in Europe (about 1,064,000 ha), Hungary has a significant proportion, as shown in Figure 2 using the IPC data [12]. With 198,520 hectares of poplar tree-growing areas, it is outperformed only by France [10,12]. Nearly 200,000 hectares alone are greater than the total quantities in other Central and Eastern European countries. Here, the native and hybrid species are present in almost the same quantity, similarly in France. While in Spain we almost find only hybrid poplars, in Bulgaria or Slovenia, the situation is just the opposite. The area occupied by poplars in Hungary has remained practically unchanged over the past 10 years. Following sites of oaks and black locust, it has a 10.6% area compared to the total forest area. Considering the area of the countries, the area occupied by poplar trees in Hungary is even more remarkable. Hungary is in first place with 2.18%, followed by Slovenia with 0.59% and France with 0.57%. This can be explained by history, as Hungary lost about two-thirds of its territory in World War I. This largely meant mountainous and forested areas, so the proportion of flat land in the country has increased greatly. Poplar,  
Figure 2: Area of native and hybrid poplar trees (_Populus_ spp.) in Europe (based on [10,12]). among other species, was considered to be a suitable tree for these areas, so considerable planting was carried out to reduce the continuing shortage of timber [4]. Looking at the standing tree volume, oaks (_Quercus_ spp. ), black locust, beech (_Fagus sylvatica_), and pine (_Pinus_ spp.) trees outperform the poplars, but their 9.4% volume is still significant in Hungarian forests (Figure 3), which resulted in 37,904,662 m\({}^{3}\) of poplar in 2021. First of all, because, by analyzing the age of the tree species in 10-year intervals in Figure 4, black locust and poplar have the largest area in the first 30 growing years. In the later age groups, however, their ratio significantly decreases, which is due to their short cutting cycle. Figure 4: Area of species groups by age classes in Hungary (based on [10]). Abbreviations: HD—high density; LD—low density. Figure 3: Area and standing tree volume of the tree species groups in Hungary (based on [10]). Abbreviations: HD—high density; LD—low density. Examining the size of both native and hybrid poplar area (white poplar (_P. alba_), black poplar (_P. nigra_), grey poplar (_P. \(\times\) cansecens_), aspen (_P. tremula_)) in Hungary in the last 10 years, it can be seen that while the area of the hybrid poplars decreases by 1-2% per year, the area of the native poplars increases by nearly the same ratio (Figure 5). For the standing tree volume, the amount of hybrid poplars has remained practically unchanged, while the native poplars in the country have seen a 4-5% yearly increase. In the last three years of annual production of seedlings, native poplars are in first place (Figure 6). The proportion of all hybrid poplar seedlings is approximately 20%. Although the number of hybrid poplar species recognized by the state is over 20, the number of both 'I-214' and 'Pannonia' hybrid poplar species (_P. \(\times\) euramericana cv. I-214_ and _P. \(\times\) euramericana cv. Pannonia_, respectively) is outstanding, with a share of more than 80% among the hybrids. In accordance with the proportion of the standing tree volume, poplars represent a significant amount of the harvested volume in Hungary (averagely 1400 gross thousand m\({}^{3}\) yearly) since they have been harvested in almost the same amount as black locust and conifers in recent years (Table 1). For a one-becATE annual increment, the native poplars are first, while the hybrid poplars are ranked second. Considering the area proportions of the different poplars, practically two species constitute two-thirds of the total area (Figure 7). Grey poplar is present in the highest volume, with 42% (76,282 ha), followed by 'Pannonia' (22%--39,975 ha).