Abstract
The production and feasibility of Short Rotation Coppice depend on cutting early performance. The shoot and root biomass production of Salix cuttings in hydroponic conditions was studied. The amount of sprouted biomass after four weeks of growth depended on cutting the diameter, but the original position of the cutting along the rod or number of visible buds was not in correlation with biomass produced. Application of mineral fertilizer or soil originating from the willow plantation did not increase the total production. On the contrary, the addition of soil tended to decrease biomass production and we assumed this was a result of a shortage of light. Under the influence of fertilization, plants allocated greater biomass to roots. Comparison of different clones revealed that those with S. dasyclados genes tended to allocate less biomass to roots and the poorest-performing clone in our experiment, also had the lowest wood production in the plantation. The number of visible buds on the cutting was also clone-specific.
Highlights
High quality and good physiological condition of cutting material are key aspects of successful and economically feasible short rotation coppice (SRC) plantations [1]
The general model, that included all experiment data, revealed that the total new biomass production of cuttings was significantly dependent on study year, on treatment, on clone and on cutting diameter, but the replication did not add any significant information to the model (Table 2)
In order to better understand the impact of the treatments on cutting biomass production we studied the ratio between shoot and root biomass production
Summary
High quality and good physiological condition of cutting material are key aspects of successful and economically feasible short rotation coppice (SRC) plantations [1]. In addition to an insufficient availability of nutrients, unequal plant growth and dieback of cuttings are found to be the main factors resulting in a decline of production during consecutive SRC harvests [2]. These kinds of problems are most severe in Salix L. In addition to economic considerations, SRC plantations with variable plant densities and large numbers of gaps in the SRC vegetation cover can cause ecological problems if the SRC is used as a phytoremediation site or in terms of vegetation filter [4]. Besides the selection of planting material (highly productive genotypes and vigorous hybrid cultivars), the quality of cutting material survival has been found to be influenced by pre-planting storage conditions [1], the quality of soil preparation [9,10]
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