Growth of northern red oak in southern Sweden

Abstract

Northern red oak originates from eastern North America and was introduced to Swedish forestry in the 1940-1950s. Long-term experimental plots were established in some of the early plantations to monitor growth and yield. This study summarizes the results from eight of the oldest experimental plots from the northern limit of the red oak's distribution in Europe. All plots were situated in southern Sweden and the stand age at the last measurement was 53-83 years. The growth of red oak was compared with 53-95-year-old native oak in six other nearby experimental plots, although this was not a controlled tree species comparison. The greatest mean annual volume increment of red oak was 6.5 m(3) ha(-1) yr(-1). The mean volume production at an age of ca. 60 years was 5.3 and 3.6 m(3) ha(-1) yr(-1) for plots of red oak and native oak, respectively. Top height at this age was on average 22 m for red oak, about 4 m greater than for native oak. The mean diameter of the 100 largest trees ha(-1) was 32 cm for red oak at an age of ca. 60 years. Comparison of the relative growth rate revealed no pronounced difference between the species.

Keywords

Quercus rubra L; yield; dimension

Published in

Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research
2021, Volume: 36, number: 6, pages: 442-447 Publisher: TAYLOR & FRANCIS AS

SLU Authors

• Johansson, Ulf

  • Unit for Field-based Forest Research, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02827581.2021.1973086

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/113572