Scots Pine Seedlings Growth Under Different Ca/Mn Soil Ratios

Liudmyla Romanchuk,Nazariy Sus,Pavlo Didenko,Volodymyr Ustymenko,Anatolii Orlovskyi

doi:10.11648/j.ijee.20210602.12

Abstract

Low Ca/Mn ratios in soils are considered one of the causes of forest decline in the northern hemisphere, in particular, Scots pine forest decline. Nevertheless, there are little data on the growth and development of forest trees, especially Scots pine, under different soil concentrations of calcium and manganese. Therefore, the present study aims to estimate Scots pine seedlings' height growth under different Ca/Mn soil ratios. For this purpose, we measured the height of 8-month-old Scots pine seedlings that grew on two adjacent plots, whose soils had different origins and, therefore, differed significantly in their properties. Some of these soil properties, namely exchangeable and hydrolytic acidity, the sum of absorbed bases, the content of humus, alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen, exchangeable potassium and calcium, mobile sulfur and phosphorus, mobile compounds of copper, zinc, cobalt, cadmium, lead, and manganese, were determined by various methods. Pairwise comparison of values of listed above properties of soils from these experimental plots revealed that these soils differed significantly in manganese and calcium content and acid-basic properties. Therefore, as the ratio of molal concentrations of exchangeable calcium to manganese mobile compounds (Ca/Mn ratio) in the soil is a parameter that combines those soil properties that differed significantly between the two plots, we used the one-way ANOVA to verify the association between Ca/Mn ratio and Scots pine seedlings' height growth rate. As a result, this analysis revealed a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) in mean height between Scots pine seedlings that grew under relatively low (45.28/1) and relatively high Ca/Mn ratio (195.12/1) in soil. Nevertheless, although the mean height of Scots pine seedlings that grew at the ratio of 45.28/1 was approximately 1.6 times lower than seedlings that grew at the ratio of 195.12/1, the optimum value of the Ca/Mn ratio in the soil for Scots pine remains unknown. In addition, the hypothesis that untested soil properties have also caused the differences in the mean height of seedlings was not rejected. Thus, the impact of the Ca/Mn ratio together with the potential impact of untested soil properties on the growth and development of Scots pine and the optimum value of this ratio for this species needs to be investigated in further studies.

Highlights

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is the most widespread conifer species in the world, covering nearly 3.7% of the total world forest area [1]
We investigated Scots pine seedlings' growth under different Ca/Mn soil ratios
P-value for the influence of the Ca/Mn molal ratio. The design of this experiment allowed us to reject the hypothesis that the differences between the mean height of Scots pine seedlings, which grew in plot 1 (P1) and plot 2 (P2), are caused by non-soil conditions

Summary

Introduction

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is the most widespread conifer species in the world, covering nearly 3.7% of the total world forest area [1]. P. sylvestris is one of the most important sources of wood raw material in Eurasia [2]. This species is widespread from Siberia to Iberia and grows under a large range of climatic and edaphic conditions. Despite the broad ecological tolerance of this species, Scots pine forests, like the other coniferous forests, are declining across the world [4]. In general, the forest decline is a consequence of the anthropogenic impact, a wide range of causes of forest mortality have been reported in the literature.

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion