On Wednesday, March 4^th of 2015 a field trip was organized by the Forest Genetic Laboratory of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki team with the cooperation of The Decentralized Administration of Macedonia – Thrace in order to visit two potential forest genetic monitoring plots for Abies borisii-regis (Bulgarian fir) in the south side lower Mt. Olympus in the region of Kallipefki. Our travels, which amounted up to the distance of 125 km, took us from Thessaloniki through the foothills of the eastern Mt. Olympus massif to our final destination.

All of LIFEGENMON’s technical and advisory board members visited the plots, discussed advantages and disadvantages of selecting proposed plot locations for forest genetic monitoring plot and their relative importance, taking into account the specifics of the visited locations. The introductions on both sites were given by George Rousakis of the local Forest Service and prof. dr. Phil Aravanopoulos. An active exchange of opinions and thoughts took place and useful suggestions were made regarding the important decisions of choosing the most appropriate Forest Genetic Monitoring Plot in a particular region.

After visiting the proposed locations, the project team had lunch at a local restaurant. The food was excellent, the views were stunning and the village itself was beautiful. Find out more in the photo gallery below:

Tags: abies, aravanopoulos, aristotle, borisii, forest, genetic, monitoring, mt, olympus, plots, regis, thessaloniki, university