Christina Lundgren

Cell wall thickness and tangential and radial cell diameter of fertilized and irrigated Norway spruce

Lundgren C. (2004). Cell wall thickness and tangential and radial cell diameter of fertilized and irrigated Norway spruce. Silva Fennica vol. 38 no. 1 article id 438. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.438

Abstract

Two Norway spruce nutrient trials were used to evaluate the effects of fertilization and irrigation on transverse tracheid dimensions. Three different treatments and a control (C) were used; daily irrigation (I), daily liquid fertilization (IL) and an annual solid fertilization (F). The nutrient optimisation was based on foliage analysis and both liquid and solid fertilization essentially comprised the same amount of nutrients but the latter was applied annually in solid form. The cell measurements; cell wall thickness, radial and tangential cell widths, were obtained using image analysis (SilviScan at CSIRO, Melbourne, Australia). Mean annual cell wall thickness was decreased by fertilization (F and IL) on both sites whereas no effect of the irrigation on wall thickness could be detected. Radial cell width was increased by treatment at Flakaliden but at Asa the effect of irrigation and fertilization was reversed when the data structure i.e. development from pith and out and annual ring width was taken into account. Tangential cell width was not significantly affected by treatment at Flakaliden. At Asa fertilization caused a small increase on tangential cell width. Ring width was positively affected by treatment and is an important factor explaining the effects on primarily cell wall thickness and radial cell width.

Keywords
cell wall thickness; tangential tracheid diameter; radial tracheid diameter; tracheid dimensions; nutrient optimisation; juvenile wood

Received 23 June 2003 Accepted 4 February 2004 Published 31 December 2004

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