Because its spruces are hundreds of years old and much older than ordinary trees. Its wood is ideal for making musical instruments such as violins and guitars. But climate change is causing problems for spruces.
“I’ve never seen so many dry trees,” Villard says. He is now busy marking dead spruce trees for cutting every day.
“When I came to the Joux Valley 30 years ago, the annual average temperature was five to six degrees. Now it’s much higher. I used to live with minus 27 degrees in winter, but for three or four years it’s only been minus 13 to minus 17 degrees on the coldest days.”
The spruce is the most common wood species in Switzerland, and the formerly stable climate in the Jura mountains makes it ideal for obtaining tonal wood for string instruments. Strong and light softwood species such as spruce are used for sound boxes as they amplify the vibration of the strings. The sound body should vibrate easily and have good sound quality, but must also withstand the pull of the strings in the bridge. There is no tree more suitable for this than the spruce tree.
It is very rare to find a tree that meets the criteria perfectly, even among spruces. The tree must be 200 to 400 years old and at least half a meter in diameter. It should grow slowly and straight, without ripples, so that the annual rings are close and even.
Quentin Durey outlines a guitar on a thin wooden top at the Swiss Resonance Wood wood shop in Le Brassus. Thousands of such blankets are stacked here to dry over the years. But his owner, Théo Magnin, who has been in the timber business since childhood, is worried. “I don’t know where people who will be making musical instruments in ten or 20 years are going to get their materials. When there is no wood, there is no instrument.”
Overlooking Lake Geneva from his workshop, guitar maker Philip Ramel makes two to four guitars a year using wood from Swiss Resonance Wood. “We have to stock up because we have to assume that one day there will be no trees left,” he warns. Or that the spruce has lost its special properties. “The guitar could become a luxury instrument,” Ramel fears.
Drought weakens the spruce, which later becomes easy prey for bark beetles. And extreme weather conditions affect growth. “If things keep going like this, these trees will be subject to more stress and it’s not certain they can handle it,” says Förster Villard.
Normally, spruces give only cones every few years. But lately it’s been happening at shorter intervals. When spruces suffer from drought stress, they bloom more frequently and profusely to reproduce and maintain the species.
But all is not lost yet. For example, if beech is also planted in spruce forests, the soil retains more moisture because its large crowns and leaves block the sun’s rays. Also, some experts say that millions of spruce trees still grow in the mountains.
Forester Philippe Domont says: “The spruce will continue to grow for a very long time, especially in sheltered areas in the north. At higher altitudes, they may benefit from a slight increase in temperature if the precipitation does not decrease too much.” But looking further ahead, Magnin is certain: “We must find another tree instead of the spruce. This is the music of the future.”
(SDA)