The state of Scots pine plantations in the steppe Voronezh region in drought conditions and under anthropogenic influence

Abstract

Monitoring the state of forest tree plantations is an urgent task in today’s changing climate conditions. Climate change presents acute challenges for steppe biome: there is a prolonged increase in average daily temperatures, accompanied by a deficit of precipitation, mainly in the spring-summer period, and droughts become more frequent. Also, in addition to climatic factors, the consequences of human economic activity have a negative impact on forest communities. The aim of the study is to assess the indicators of the vital state of Scots pine in the steppe Voronezh region under drought conditions and under anthropogenic influence. To study the state of forest woody plants, we selected two Scots pine plantations growing in contrasting ecological conditions of the steppe zone of the Central Black Earth region. The main indicators of the vital state were assessed: dechromation of needles, defoliation of the crown, the number of new cones, and the total score of the vital state of each plant and the studied plantation as a whole was calculated using the totality of these characteristics. It is found that a plantation under anthropogenic load is subjected to greater stress and has worse performance compared to a plantation from the same climatic zone, but growing on a relatively ecologically clean territory.