Abstract
This study compares the relation of initial height and root collar diameter of bareroot hardwoods seedlings to survival and growth in first year after planting. A total of six species used in Serbian reforestation programs were tested (four native: Fagus sylvatica, Ulmus laevis, Fraxinus excelsior, and Acer pseudoplatanus and two exotic: Robinia pseudoacacia, and Quercus rubra), at 6 sites with a wide range of environmental conditions. Initial seedling height and diameter were equally related to field performance and better in forecasting growth than survival. The relation between seedlings initial morphological attributes and survival was species specific, while for all tested species growth was positively correlated to seedling size at planting. Although large seedlings kept their advantage in size, smaller seedlings grew at a higher rate. Both initial H and D should be considered as equally important in operational programs for hardwoods seedling quality testing.
Highlights
Testing for seedling quality provides information both to nursery managers related to whether stocktypes meet quality standards, and to reforestation silviculturists about the potential performance of seedlings in the field (Ivetić et al 2016)
Aiming to compare relation between initial height and root collar diameter to survival and growth of bareroot hardwood seedlings in first year after planting, a total of six species used in Serbian reforestation programs were tested, four native (Fagus sylvatica L., Ulmus laevis Pall., Fraxinus excelsior L., and Acer pseudoplatanus L.) and two exotic (Robinia pseudoacacia L., and Quercus rubra L.)
The one-year-old bareroot seedlings H ranged between 18 cm (F. sylvatica) and 49 cm (A. pseudoplatanus), D ranged from 4.3 mm (F. excelsior) to 7.7 (A. pseudoplatanus)
Summary
Testing for seedling quality provides information both to nursery managers related to whether stocktypes meet quality standards, and to reforestation silviculturists about the potential performance of seedlings in the field (Ivetić et al 2016). Despite rather contradictory experiments relating seedling size to field performance, seedling morphology remains the basis for stocktype characterization (Thompson 1985) with height and stem diameter as the most widely used attributes measured in seedling quality assessment (Mexal and Landis 1990; Haase 2007; Pinto 2011; Ivetić 2013). Root collar diameter was reported as better (compared to shoot height) measure of seedling quality (Chavasse 1977; Mattsson 1996), positively and significantly correlated with growth of hardwoods (Dey and Parker 1997) and conifers (Ward et al 2000; South et al 2005) as well as with field survival of five Mediterranean species (Tsakaldimi et al 2012). Initial root collar diameter, height, fresh mass and root volume show a similar forecasting ability of height for hardwood species (Jacobs et al 2005)
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