The effects of the stocking material type and soil pre-treatment methods on survival, growth and wood structure in 24-year-old spruce crops

The survival, growth, and wood structure of 24-year-old spruce crops planted as seedlings and saplings using different soil pre-treatment methods (forest floor removal, mounding, without soil pre-treatment) were studied. The study showed that owing to higher resistance to some adverse environmental impacts the survival rate of largesized saplings by the middle of the third decade was 92%, whereas the survival rate of seedlings at the same age was 29%. Spruce crops planted as saplings had the growth parameters of quality class I, with height and diameter 2-2.5-fold greater and average tree volume 5-8-fold greater than in crops planted as seedlings. It has been established that the method of pre-treating soil influenced the radial increment during the first decade and the type of stocking material – until the end of the second decade. The greater wood increment in saplings is due to the formation of a larger number of earlywood tracheid rows and thicker-walled tracheids in early- and late wood (by 30 and 9%, respectively). Notwithstanding the variable percentage of latewood in saplings, this increment quality did not go below the average levels (16–23%) typically found in naturally growing spruce stands in European Russia. In the future, the results of the study can be used to substantiate the regimes for target-oriented cultivation of spruce through selection of the stocking material, soil pre-treatment methods and crop density regulation to get timber with low content of latewood tracheids and resinous substances for the pulp-and-paper industry or crops with dense, uniformly structured wood for high-grade saw timber.

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