The Influence of edaphic characteristics and clonal variation on quantity and quality of wood production in Populus grandidentata Michx. in the Great Lakes region of the USA : Dickenwachstum der Bäume

Wien

Forstliche Bundesversuchsanstalt

1981

S. 271-292

10 Abb., 1 Tab., 46 Lit. Ang.

Unselbständiges Werk

200004871

Dickenwachstum der Bäume : Dickenwachstum der Bäume ; 142/II (1981) , S. 271-292

Mature (55 ء 7 years) largetooth aspen (Populus grandidentata Michx.) were harvested from three stands in northern lower Michigan, U.S.A., using dimension analysis techniques. The three harvest sites represent the range of soil quality characteristics that influence tree growth rates in the Great Lakes Region of the central U.S.A. (i.e., good, intermediate, and poor in terms of net component production of the poor site and over 52% at the good and intermediate sites. Net annual production per unit leaf weight was about 33% less for the poor site aspen as compared with the good site aspen. Total aspen tree production at the good and intermediate site was 3.7 and 2.5 times greater than production ot the poor site. Although apsens display a large difference in net productivity among the three sites and clonal groups, the wood is suprisingly uniform in density (spedific gravity = 0.38 ء 0.03). Good site wood with wide rings has nearly equal wood anatomy to wood with narrow rings on the poor sited, with the difference being in the total number of cells produced. Thus, volume production in aspen is a good measure of biomass production, and good sites simply yield greater quantities of wood, of equal quality, tha poor sites. A sixty-year comparsion, at five-year intervals, of radial increments and bole wood production at each site indicates that good site superior clones had twice the radial growth and production of inferior clones on the good site while superior clones on the poor site had three times the growth of inferior clones at the poor site. The selection of superior aspen clones for stand regeneration could significantly increase productivity on all sites.