Pre-Commercial Thinning Increases the Profitability of Norway Spruce Monoculture and Supports Norway Spruce–Birch Mixture over Full Rotations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript deals with an important development stage of a stand with spruce and birch when pre-commercial thinnings are performed. Many economic analyses have shown that precommercial thinning often is the most rewarding long-term investment that can be made in silvicultural treatment. So I think that it is still necessary to study the effects of that treatment in a long run, especially if it refers to the mixed-species stands.

The manuscript is well-written and clear.

I have only a few remarks that could improve the text.

- figure 1 is not clear to me. Please make it more readable.

- Subsection 2.3. Simulation - I think that more information on  Heureka modelling is needed and especially on the PlanWise application. Not all readers are familiar with that growth model.

- Line 157 - what basal area growth functions were used?

- the result description is based on a 2% interest rate. As you mentioned in the methods and materials section analyses were done also on 1 and 3% interest rates. So, in my opinion, it would be worth mentioning the results also based on these two percent but without going into the details. Make some comparisons between these three rates.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you so much for your time on this manuscript. You will find the authors' responses in the attached file.

Sincerely,

On the behalf of all the authors'

Mostarin Ara

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is good quality article on very practical issue. The manuscript is well structured, the goals are clearly defined and achieved. In general, the study is good described, methodology is clear, the results are presented in a comprehensible manner.

Few remarks:

Figure 1. is not readable for me. Probably the black quadrangle should be placed in the map of Sweden to indicate the study area?

Description of Figure 5. is controversial for me (Lines 262-264). One sentence says that logs over 14 cm are graded as timber (all smaller – pulpwood) while the next sentence – all logs irrespective of dimension were assorted as pulpwood.

The citation of [11] in Line 46 probably is unnecessary self-citation.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you so much for your time on this manuscript. You will find the authors' responses in the attached file.

Sincerely,

On the behalf of all the authors'

Mostarin Ara

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf