Abstract

Today, most poplar plantations in the temperate region are established on abandoned marginal agricultural land, but there is great potential for planting poplars on forest land as the available area is large and does not compete with food production. The objective of this study was to examine how different planting types (un-rooted cuttings, bare-rooted and containerized plants) affect the establishment and early growth of poplar plants on forest and agricultural sites. Our results suggest that on the agricultural site, survival and growth during the first two years are not influenced by plant type. However, at the forest sites, survival of rooted plants was superior compared to un-rooted cuttings. The height and biomass (stem and root) increment of bare-rooted plants was low; greater height and biomass growth was found for containerized plants. Container sizes had no effect on height growth, but leaf and stem biomasses were higher if the largest containers were used. When using the largest containers, concentrations of macronutrients (N, P) were increased compared to bare-rooted plants. Thus, these results suggest that practices for establishing poplar plantations of agricultural land include planting of un-rooted cutting, but on forest land, a plant grown in a container of 470ml should be used. Together, this can reduce the cost of establishment, increase the available area for poplar plantations and have an impact on poplar plantation economics in Sweden.

Keywords

Hybrid poplar; plant types; forest land; agricultural land; establishment; growth response; nutrient content

Published in

Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research
2016, volume: 31, number: 8, pages: 733-741
Publisher: TAYLOR & FRANCIS AS

Authors' information