Abstract
In forest management in Poland, there are no standards for the quality and suitability for planting seedlings produced in nursery containers; therefore, research contributing to the development of such guidelines is important. We investigated the growth reaction of European beech and Norway spruce seedlings growing in container technology one year after planting on an experimental forest plantation. The seedlings used in the study were three experimental variants grown in a container nursery differing in fertilization. Two heights of seedlings were measured, i.e., after the first growing season on the experimental plantation and the initial (obtained in the forest nursery), and the annual (AHI, cm) and relative height increments (RHI, %) were calculated. The regression of the RHI of seedlings to their initial height was calculated, and the equations obtained were used to determine the optimal range of seedling height at the stage of nursery growth at which they will achieve the maximum increment in the first year of growth on the plantation. The change from foliar fertilization to a mixed one affected beech and spruce seedling parameters; however, it did not affect the diversity of their survival on the experimental plantation. Higher seedlings planted on the experimental plantation were characterized by a smaller RHI. The optimal range for the height of seedlings obtained at the nursery stage of growing, which determined the maximum value of the AHI after the first year of growth after planting, was 18–36 cm for beech and 14–25 cm for spruce.
Highlights
Changes caused by technological progress and changing demand for seedlings have been observed in Polish nurseries
The aim of the study was to evaluate the growth of European beech and Norway spruce seedlings in the first year after planting them on the experimental forest plantation, depending on the experimental variant determined by different methods of fertilization applied at the production stage in the container nursery
The precipitation abundance index (W) [35] was 42%, which meant that water had to be supplied to the production fields only on an ad hoc basis, and substrate humidity was maintained at 85% (±4%)
Summary
Changes caused by technological progress and changing demand for seedlings have been observed in Polish nurseries. In the 1950s and 60s, production was carried out in many small, temporary ground nurseries Such nurseries are less numerous, are larger and more technologically advanced, and in many of them a part of the production is carried out in the so-called container modules. There are 17 large container nurseries, where only seedlings with a covered root system are produced. Container seedlings survive and grow better on the cultivations [3], regardless of the altitude [4]. This is due to the improved overcoming of post-planting stress, which is partly related to the higher tolerance of container seedlings to drought [5]. The quality of the planting material depends on a number of factors, including the type and characteristics of the soil or nursery substrate [6,7,8,9], soil compaction [10,11,12,13,14], irrigation [15,16,17,18], light [19], and fertilization [20,21,22]
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