Abstract
A long-term experiment set up by G. W. Dimbleby to test the effect of birch as a soil improver on a heather moor podzol is described. After 30 yr, an acid woodland type of vegetation developed under the birch trees with Deschampsia flexuosa and Vaccinium myrtillus locally dominant. The mean annual dry matter production of stems and branches was approximately 2.9 t ha −1. The raw humus layer removed as an experimental treatment had re-formed. Its pH, about 3.4, had remained unchanged for 15 yr. The mean extractable Ca content of the upper 3 cm horizon of the birch plots and of the control plots under heather had increased and on some of the birch plots the concentrations of exchangeable Ca were somewhat higher than those under heather. The N content of the Ol + Of, Oh and Ea horizons was higher under the birch than under heather but there was no evidence of movement of Fe out of the ironpan under the influence of birch. The profile under birch remained a fully differentiated podzol.
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