T. Bitvinskas conducted the first dendrochronological research in Lithuania on black alder stands in Biržai forests in 1953. The obtained results were summarised in the journal Mūsų girios (1961). Specialists in forestry have carried out the first broader research on tree rings in Lithuania. They belonged to the forest increment research group initiated by Dr V. Antanaitis at the Lithuanian Forest Planning Project in 1960–1962. Therefore, this work had a nature of ecological and forest research. The Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris (L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karsten) in Varėna, Švenčionys, Zarasai, Rokiškis and in other forest enterprises from the driest to the wettest and from the unproductive to the most fertile forest sites were examined. The research gave a good insight into the dynamic of the radial increment in different forest sites. The results were presented in a collective monograph, Radial growth of Lithuanian forests in 1959–1965.
Later this was further developed in the dissertation by T. Bitvinskas, Dynamics of the increment of Lithuanian pine forests and the possibilities of the forecast, defended at Timiriazev Agricultural Academy in 1966. The Solar activity and the atmospheric circulation in the 11, 22, 44 and 88-year cycles were shown to be the leading causes determining the cyclic regularities of the pine increment (11-year cycles in dry and moderately wet sites and 22-year cycles in bogs). Only ten years later, American scientists, such as Stockton et al., have admitted the influence of the Solar and its significance in natural rhythms. In his dissertation and monograph Dendrochronological research (published in 1974), T. Bitvinskas also presented simple and suitable methods of evaluating the anthropogenic (e.g. forest drainage) and other (e.g. zoological) activities on tree rings.
On the 1st of January 1968, the Group of Dendroclimatochronology was established at the Flora and Geobotany Section of the Botanical Institute of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. The group was located in Kaunas, Laisvės av. 53.
In 1968, the first joint dendrochronological and dendroclimatological meeting in the former USSR took place in Vilnius. This meeting was attended by over twenty specialists in physics, biology, climatology, forestry and archaeology. At the conference, a leading academician Boris Konstantinov, one of the creators of the hydrogen bomb, stressed the exciting possibility of assessing the environmental extremes from tree rings using the radiocarbon method. Reports were presented by Lithuanian scientists, namely L. Kairiūkštis, A. Juodvalkis, R. Šleinys and V. Ščemeliovas. T. Bitvinskas suggestions to research fossils of pine stumps from raised bogs and to create the long-term chronologies, offered during this discussion, were only put into practice thirty years later.
In November 1971, an important conference on radiocarbon in the atmosphere of the Earth and the dating problems of radiocarbon in Kaunas was held. During this conference, reports were presented by T. Bitvinskas, J. Kairaitis, I. Čerškienė, R. Pakalnis, K. Šulija, J. Banys and others. In another conference held in Kaunas in October of 1972, Dendroclimatochronology and radiocarbon, P. Zakarka, E. Maleckas and J. Butėnas also participated.
The first generalisation of separate publications by B. Konstantinov, G. Kocharov, K. Jankevičius, T. Bitvinskas and V. Dergachev Variations of radiocarbon in the atmosphere of the Earth and dendrochronological and dendroclimatological research appeared in 1970. It enlarged the ideas of B. Konstantinov and G. Kocharov. It was concluded that in the future, it might be possible to establish the annual regularities of the climatic changes in the Holocene during the last 4000–6000 years using the subfossil wood preserved in peat-bogs and alluvial deposits of the rivers. These ideas were also emphasised in July 1975 during the 2nd Botanical Congress in Leningrad.
A symposium entitled Bioecological Foundations of the Plant Life Rational Use, Change and Preservation took place with the approval of the Science Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In its session in Tallinn (16–17 of April 1974), a Commission of Dendroclimatological Research was established, and academician L. Kairiūkštis became its president. T. Bitvinskas was assigned to be a vice president. The commission comprised of that time famous foresters, biologists, archaeologists and geographers, such as A. Molchanov, G. Gortinskiy, B. Kolchin, G. Komin, S. Shiyatov, M. Rozanov and others. This commission and its leaders stimulated dendrochronological and dendroclimatological research in the former USSR, organised conferences and published special articles. Meetings on dendrochronology took place in Tbilisi (1973, 1976), and conferences were held in Irkutsk (1987) and Sverdlovsk (1990).
Dendrochronological investigations in the Faculty of Forestry at the Lithuanian Agricultural Academy have been carried out by V. Antanaitis and P. Žadeikis (1977), V. Antanaitis and B. Zagreev (1969) and V. Antanaitis and R. Juknys (1978). I. Čerškienė defended the first dissertation on dendroclimatology in 1975. T. Kapustinskaitė and J. Ruseckas at the Lithuanian Forestry Research Institute started investigating wet and swampy alder and spruce forests, applying the dendrochronological methods. V. Stravinskienė defended a dissertation Dendroclimatological analysis of tree increment in the hydro-improved forests of Lithuania in 1981. Leonardas Kairiūkštis and J. Dubinskaitė-Venclovienė worked on the ecological forecast based on tree increment cycles. The academician L. Kairiūkštis is noteworthy for consolidating the strength of dendrochronologists in the former USSR and abroad, especially while working in Laxenburg (IIASA). Due to his efforts, international meetings on dendrochronology were held in Kraków (1986), Albena (1986) and Joensuu (1987).
Having been approved by the Research Commission and with the financing of the Institute of Botany of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, the Dendroclimatochronology Laboratory in Kaunas, Laisves av. 53 was established in 1976. The first published series of scientific works were three volumes entitled Climatic Changes in Time and Space and Tree Rings, published in 1978, 1981, 1984 and 1987. Another series was called Dendroclimatological chronologies of the Soviet Union, of which there were four volumes. T. Bitvinskas was the editor of both series. The volumes contain 194 chronologies. Unfortunately, further issues were discontinued when the Laboratory status and financing possibilities changed. The research on seasonal radial growth and meteorological observation in Vaišnoriškė village of Aukštaitija National Park started in 1976. Measurements of groundwater level in a bog have been carried out since 1997.
Thanks to the exchange of published material with foreign scientists through the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (up to 150 copies of our publications to the foreign Dendrochronology centres), it became possible to publish a world bibliographic index Dendroclimatochronology 1900–1970 by the Central Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in 1978. In total, it contained 2112 references. Furthermore, in 1995, the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (bibliographer S. Norkūnienė) prepared a bibliography Dendroclimatochronology 1971–1980. In total, it contains 2616 references.
J.M. Fletcher presented a surprise at the International Dendrochronology Symposium by presenting a translation from Russian to English of publications of the conferences held in Lithuania in 1968, 1970 and 1972. The three volumes (in English translation) of Soviet publications in dendrochronology were published by the Tree-Ring Laboratory at the University of Arizona in 1986, 1987 and 1993. The translated monograph by T. Bitvinskas was published in the first volume. Unfortunately, only several years later, the author realised this was done.
T. Bitvinskas defended his doctoral dissertation, Bioecological foundation of the dendrochronological research in Sverdlovsk, in 1984. That same year, Jonas Karpavičius in Minsk maintained his dissertation Changes of the individual and group increment of Scots pine in a zone of mixed forests. Finally, in 1986, using dendrochronological transect Murmansk – Lithuania – the Carpathians, Aleksandra Stupneva defended the dissertation at the Pulkovo Observatory on physics-mathematics Solar activity in the past and its dependent phenomena in the Earth.
Dr R. Pukienė compiled a 2200-year pine chronology from stems and stumps of pine wood preserved in a raised bog Užpelkių tyrelis (Plungė region). It was presented in the dissertation Pinewood growth dynamics in Užpelkių Tyrelis oligotrophic bog during the Subatlantic Period (1997). In addition, a rich collection of subfossil oak from the Smurgainiai (Byelorussia) gravel pit was accumulated. According to radiocarbon dates, the oldest oaks grew 5782–5612 BC.
The Laboratory of dendrochronology was one of the organisers of the International scientific conference Eurodendro-98 held in Kaunas on 17–21 June 1998.
In 2001–2004, the Laboratory participated in a joint research project Complex investigation of Stone Age pile dwelling settlements. During the work, Žemaitiškė-2 pile dwelling settlement was investigated by dendrochronological techniques. Furthermore, archaeological excavations and restoration of Grand Duke's Palace in Vilnius allowed us to investigate historical timber findings. Dr R. Pukienė is performing this work.
Thanks to the intense collaboration with dendrochronologists in other countries and the long-term sampling and dating efforts, millennial and centennial tree-ring chronologies of oak, pine and spruce were constructed for Lithuania. The complied chronologies are suitable for timber dating and climate reconstruction:
The Laboratory of Dendrochronology was reorganised into a Group of Dendroclimatology and Radiometrics of Environmental Research Centre in 2003.
In 2012, the 2nd International Conference, Baltdendro 2012, was organised. In April 2015, the Group of Dendroclimatology and Radiometrics formally suspended scientific activity because of the loss of workspace.