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Silviculture of varietal loblolly pine plantations: second year impacts of spacing and silvicultural treatments on varieties with differing crown ideotypes

Informally Refereed

Abstract

A long-term study has been established to address the following objectives: 1) Evaluate the crown ideotype approach to clonal testing in loblolly pine; 2) Determine impacts of increasing genetic uniformity on growth and uniformity of loblolly pine plantations; 3) Compare growth response, carbon allocation patterns (above and below ground), and ecophysiological processes of loblolly pine clones under different management intensities and planting densities; and 4) Compare the effects of different climatic and edaphic conditions and silvicultural regimes on growth and ecophysiology of loblolly pine varieties. This study has two North American installations in the southeastern United States (Virginia Piedmont, North Carolina Coastal Plain) and one South American installation in Brazil (Santa Catarina State). A split-split plot design was used in this study with two levels of silviculture (operational, intense), as the main plot treatment, six genotype entries (1 open pollinated, 1 control pollinated, 4 clonal) as the split-plot treatment, and three planting densities (250, 500, and 750 trees per acre) as the split-split plot treatment. The clones were a range of crown ideotypes, with two moderately wide crown ideoptypes and two broad crown ideotypes. Second year growth responses are presented.

Parent Publication

Citation

Vickers, Lance A.; Fox, Thomas R.; Stape, Jose L.; Albaugh, Timothy J. 2012. Silviculture of varietal loblolly pine plantations: second year impacts of spacing and silvicultural treatments on varieties with differing crown ideotypes. In: Butnor, John R., ed. 2012. Proceedings of the 16th biennial southern silvicultural research conference. e-Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-156. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 363-367.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/41530