Effects of thermal wounding, shading and exogenous auxin on some sprouting responses of coast redwood seedlings.

Abstract

The effects of wounding, shading, and indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) on sprouting responses were examined in coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens D. Don (Endl)) seedlings. In August, two-year-old seedlings were given one of three thermal wounding treatments made with a blowtorch at the stem base. After 8 months, the heat-wounded seedlings were decapitated above the burl and IAA (0.00% to 1.00% by weight in lanolin) was applied to the cut surface every week for 8 weeks. Throughout the 8-week hormone treatment, the decapitated seedlings were subjected to one of three shading treatments (no shade, 70% shading and complete darkness). At the beginning of June, sprouts were harvested from each stump and measurements made of the length of the tallest sprout, number of sprouts, dry weight of all sprouts, and mean dry weight per sprout. All sprouting parameters showed negative responses to IAA. Shading decreased sprout number and sprout dry weight. Wounding increased maximum sprout length and dry weight per sprout but decreased the number of sprouts. Only the 2-way interaction between IAA and wounding was not significant for any of the responses.