Abstract

Actual climate models for central Europe predict prolonged summer droughts. Knowledge on how the interaction between light and water availability affects regeneration will hence be of major importance. In an experiment carried out under controlled conditions, newly emerged beech seedlings were grown in pots with sand during 54 days. Three treatments applying three different light levels (2, 9 and 43% relative light intensity) were combined with two soil water treatments ( control and drought). At the end of the experiment, seedlings were separated into leaves, stem and root and the seedlings' dry mass, leaf area and stem length was determined. Low irradiance (2%) had a strong negative effect on dry weights of seedling components, leaf area and specific leaf mass. Drought clearly affected biomass partitioning for seedlings at high irradiance levels (43%). An interaction between irradiance and drought on biomass partitioning in beech seedlings was observed at medium irradiance level (9%). Within a wide range of light levels in the forests, both light and drought may affect biomass partitioning in young seedlings

Published in

Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research
2005, Volume: 20, number: 4, pages: 322-328
Publisher: TAYLOR & FRANCIS AS

SLU Authors

• Löf, Magnus

  • Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Welander, Torkel

  • Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02827580500201593

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/6398