Relationships between long-term trends of air temperature, precipitation, nitrogen nutrition and growth of coniferous stands in Central Europe and Finland

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Height growth of 19 Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Norway spruce (Picea abies) stands in Germany, Austria and Finland, for which long-term records of foliar nutrient levels were available, was assessed retrospectively by stem analyses and compared with data from regionally applied yield tables as references. Gridded historical time series of monthly temperature and precipitation were used to characterise the meteorologic conditions at the sampling sites. Climate parameters were tested against height growth in period 1950–2000, and needle N content was tested against height growth for the periods where N measurements were available by means of graphical comparison, as well as simple and multiple regression analyses with the aim to get evidence for causes of possible growth acceleration. Trends of referenced height increment of six out of nine Scots pine stands in Germany were positive during the observation period, and improved N nutrition appeared to be the most important driving factor for this growth acceleration. The variation of precipitation—exhibiting no consistent and uniform long-term temporal trend during the observation period—in contrast seems to be mainly responsible for the interannual fluctuation of height growth. We were not able to detect any general statistical influence of temperature parameters on height growth, although they generally increased. The referenced height growth of three Finnish pine stands slightly decreased during the observation period and there was no indication of a significant improvement of their N supply. Among four Norway spruce stands investigated in Germany and Austria, referenced height increment also increased in three cases; there was again some evidence that improved N nutrition was the stimulating factor. At three study sites in Finland, however, referenced height growth of this species decreased at least from 1985 onwards, whereas mostly no significant trends in N nutrition or precipitation were identified. These differences observed between species and regions are discussed in detail.