Articles containing the keyword 'experiments'

Planting of forest trees takes place in USSR on millions of hectares but without permanent forest seed bases having yet been established in every region of the country. Consequently, local seed does not suffice the need, and it is necessary to secure it from other geographical regions. To avoid negative consequences of seed transfer it is necessary to study geographic variation of the genetic characteristics of forest trees and construct scientifically based division into seed zones. Geographic transfer of seed can also be regarded as a breeding measure. A large research program is being carried out in the USSR on the subject. Most of the existing trials are provenience tests of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.). Over 2,000 hectares of new provenience experiments is to be established in near future.

The PDF includes a summary in Finnish.

• Prokazin, E-mail: ep@mm.unknown

Understanding the growth of trees is the prerequisite for meaningful forest management. Hence the studies on the ways the trees grow is important. The growth of roots and sprouts was studied by Larix leptolesis, Pinus silvestris, Betula pendula, Robinia pseudoacasia, Populus euramericana, Pseudotsuga taxifolia, Quercus borealis and some other species. The results of still ongoing experiments on pine, birch and larch are presented for root and shoot growth.

The results indicate that the amount of light or shade the tree is having plays an important role in the growth. Hence some tree species are better adapted to shade than others, there are differences in their growth depending whether they are in light or in shade. 

• Lyr, E-mail: hl@mm.unknown
• Hoffmann, E-mail: gh@mm.unknown

The article deals with laboratory experiments of humus containing soil samples that were tested for leaching of iron and lime. The humus and soil samples were collected in five different areas in Silesian state forests, Germany.

The chemical content of the extracts was measured in the beginning of the test. The flocculation experiments and experiments in glass tubes took place. The stronger or weaker the podsolization, the greater or smaller was the protective action of hums at the respective place. However, more research is needed. The results of the glass tube experiments seem to indicate that with humus there were smaller amounts of Ca and Fe leaching than with merely water. 

• Aaltonen, E-mail: va@mm.unknown

This is a working paper. It presents the laboratory experiments with soil samples from northern Finland, in which the precipitation of iron (Fe) was tested with limewater (Ca). There was no clear difference between samples with limewater and samples without limewater. However, the lime prevented the infiltration of iron almost totally.

The mineral content of soil effects the forest growth and yield and hence it is of interest for forestry. More research is needed both as field experiments and in the laboratory. 

• Aaltonen, E-mail: va@mm.unknown

Trees are particularly susceptible to climate change due to their long lives and slow dispersal. However, trees can adjust the timing of their growing season in response to weather conditions without evolutionary change or long-distance migration. This makes understanding phenological cueing mechanisms a critical task to forecast climate change impacts on forests. Because of slow data accumulation, unconventional and repurposed information is valuable in the study of phenology. Here, I develop and use a framework to interpret what phenological patterns among provenances of a species in a common garden reveal about their leafing cues, and potential climate change responses. Species whose high elevation/latitude provenances leaf first likely have little chilling requirement, or for latitude gradients only, a critical photoperiod cue met relatively early in the season. Species with low latitude/elevation origins leafing first have stronger controls against premature leafing; I argue that these species are likely less phenologically flexible in responding to climate change. Among published studies, the low to high order is predominant among frost-sensitive ring-porous species. Narrow-xylemed species show nearly all possible patterns, sometimes with strong contrasts even within genera for both conifers and angiosperms. Some also show complex patterns, indicating multiple mechanisms at work, and a few are largely undifferentiated across broad latitude gradients, suggesting phenotypic plasticity to a warmer climate. These results provide valuable evidence on which temperate and boreal tree species are most likely to adjust in place to climate change, and provide a framework for interpreting historic or newly-planted common garden studies of phenology.

• Salk, Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 49, SE- 230 53 Alnarp, Sweden; Faculty of International Studies, Utsunomiya University, 350 Minemachi, Utsunomiya-shi, Tochigi 321-8505 Japan; Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education (IGDORE) E-mail: carl.salk@slu.se