Nursery response of container Pinus palustris seedlings to nitrogen supply and subsequent effects on outplanting performance

Abstract

Container longleaf pine ( Pinus palustris) seedlings often survive and grow better after outplanting than bareroot seedlings. Because of this, most longleaf pine are now produced in containers. Little is known about nursery fertilization effects on the quality of container longleaf pine seedlings and how that influences outplanting performance. We compared various fertilization rates (0.5, 1, 2, 3, or 4 mg nitrogen (N) per week for 20 weeks) for two crops (2004 and 2005) of container longleaf pine, grown inside a fully-controlled greenhouse (2004 and 2005) or in an outdoor compound (2005). Seedlings grew larger in the nursery with increasing amounts of N. After 20 weeks of fertilizer treatment, seedlings received two additional fertigations at the same treatment rate to promote hardening, N concentrations declined sharply, and seedlings shifted biomass production toward roots. Overall, shoots showed more plasticity to N rate than did roots. Survival of either crop after outplanting was unaffected by nursery N rate. For both crops, no seedlings emerged from the grass stage during the first year after outplanting, and during the second year, more seedlings exited the grass stage and were taller as N rate increased up to 3 mg per week. By the third field season, nearly all seedlings in the 2004 crop had exited the grass stage, whereas 44% of 2005 crop grown at 1 mg N had yet to initiate height growth, either because of differences in seed source between the two crop years or because of droughty conditions. Our data suggests that an application rate of about 3 mg N per week for 20 weeks plus two additional applications during hardening yields satisfactory nursery growth as well as field response for the container type we used. The potential for improving field performance by using more robust fall fertilization during nursery production should be investigated.