Effects of winter injury on basal area and height growth of 30-year-old red spruce from 12 provenances growing in northern New Hampshire

1990 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 1616-1622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald C. Wilkinson

Basal-area increment and height growth of 30-year-old red spruce (Picearubens Sarg.) from 12 rangewide provenances growing in a plantation in northern New Hampshire were measured for a 3-year period (1986 through 1988) in which severe and (or) frequent winter damage to needles occurred. Growth of uninjured trees and injured trees were compared. Basal-area increments were successively smaller for groups of trees arranged in increasing order of average needle damage as a portion of the upper crown and number of years that the trees were injured. A similar pattern was observed for height growth, but the effect of winter damage was not as great on height growth as on basal-area increment. Growth losses following winter injury, especially height growth, were much greater for trees in provenances classed as pure red spruce than for trees in provenances where introgressive hybridization with black spruce (Piceamariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) has been demonstrated. For pure red spruce populations, repeated injury in 3 successive years or a sustained average of 30% or more needle damage resulted in losses in basal-area increment and height growth of up to 59 and 30%, respectively. Basal-area growth of the most severely injured trees in New England - New York provenances was 63% less than that of uninjured trees. These results support the contention of others that winter injury could be an initiating or perpetuating factor in red spruce decline.

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Anthony Federer ◽  
James W. Hornbeck

Weibull functions provide close least square fits to tables for stand basal area and density versus age in even-aged, second-growth red spruce as reported by W. H. Meyer (USDA Tech. Bull. No. 142. 1929). The annual mean radial and basal area increments of the trees can be calculated from the two Weibull functions. For a stand following Meyer's tables and reaching breast height in 1915, mean tree basal area increment increases steadily to a maximum in the early 1960's and then declines; mean radial increment is constant from 1925 to 1955 and then declines rapidly. This behavior matches very closely the results from 3001 red spruce increment cores in New England and New York, which suggests that forest aging is an important cause of decreasing red spruce diameter growth.


1991 ◽  
Vol 123 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Wagner ◽  
Donald R. Tobi ◽  
William E. Wallner ◽  
Bruce L. Parker

AbstractKorscheltellus gracilis (Grote) is a pest of red spruce and balsam fir roots in the forests of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. The larvae feed below ground on woody and non-woody plant tissues for 2 years before maturing. It was found at 18 localities across New England and Nova Scotia during the summers of 1987 and 1988. On Whiteface Mt., New York, and Mt. Moosilauke, New Hampshire, larvae were absent to uncommon at low (500 m) and high (1300 m) altitudes, but common to abundant in red spruce – balsam fir associations at 700, 900, and 1100 m. During September 1987, larval populations were estimated at 56 000 and 312 000 per hectare in soils at 900 m on Whiteface and Moosilauke, respectively. Dense populations occurred locally, e.g. 27 larvae were recovered from a single 0.25-m2 soil pit at 900 m on Moosilauke. By June 1988, larval numbers on Whiteface and Moosilauke had declined by 51% and 72%, respectively. Seedlings and mature trees of both spruce and fir were damaged by larval feeding on bark and cambium. Seedlings were girdled; mature trees had wounds paralleling the root axes.


1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 885-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Kelty

Two forest stands, composed primarily of northern red oak (Quercusrubra L.), red maple (Acerrubrum L.), and eastern hemlock (Tsugacanadensis (L.) Carr.), were studied by stand-reconstruction techniques to determine the pattern of development of canopy structure. One stand had originated following clear-cutting 87 years ago; the other, following catastrophic windthrow 44 years ago. Juvenile height growth of the hardwood species was much greater than that of hemlock and a stratified canopy developed by age 30 years, with hardwoods forming an overstory canopy above hemlock. Hemlocks maintained overstory positions only if they were 3 m or more in height immediately following canopy disturbance. In the older stand, hardwood height growth was about twice that of the tallest understory hemlocks during the first 30 years. The hardwood overstory slowed after that and grew at the same rate as the tallest understory hemlocks, which maintained a constant rate of height growth, and a constant to accelerating rate of basal area growth for much of the 87-year measurement period. The height growth of the tallest understory hemlocks was apparently limited in part by breakage of terminal shoots, caused by abrasion against branches of overstory hardwood crowns.


2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 862-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Alexander Elvir ◽  
G Bruce Wiersma ◽  
Alan S White ◽  
Ivan J Fernandez

Responses in basal area increment (BAI) of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) and red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) to chronic ammonium sulfate ((NH4)2SO4) treatment were examined at the Bear Brook Watershed in Maine. The Bear Brook Watershed is a pair-watershed forest ecosystem study with West Bear watershed treated with (NH4)2SO4 at a rate of 1800 equiv.·ha–1·year–1 since 1989, while East Bear watershed serves as a reference. Following 10 years of treatment, BAI was significantly higher for sugar maple trees growing in the treated watershed, with yearly increases relative to the reference watershed ranging from 13% in 1999 to 104% in 1996. The increase in sugar maple radial growth was attributed to a fertilization effect from the (NH4)2SO4 treatment. A reduction in BAI in sugar maple growing in the treated watershed observed in 1998 and 1999 was attributed to internal stresses and growth allocation to crown recovery after the severe 1998 ice storm. Red spruce showed no BAI growth responses to the treatment. Lower foliar Mg and Ca concentrations in red spruce in the treated watershed and lower soil responses to N enrichment in treated softwood stands compared with treated hardwood stands could explain the lack of BAI response in red spruce.


Author(s):  
Amy Bass

This chapter examines the diasporic quality of Red Sox Nation and the effects of winning two World Series on its (formerly “angst-ridden”) citizenry. For Boston Red Sox fans, the definition of home has always been blurry. Red Sox fans have always been part of a diasporic New England community more imagined than real, but maintaining a strong identity. Even in its most parochial eras, the Red Sox have reached far beyond Fenway Park, rendering “Boston” as home for people in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, parts of Connecticut, and the rest of Massachusetts. In the 2004 championship season, the Red Sox surpassed the New York Yankees as Major League Baseball's most profitable road attraction. This chapter considers how the creation of Red Sox Nation turned the team into a national phenomenon, “enjoying a community that is rooted to whatever space it occupies at any given moment.”


2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Mailly ◽  
Sylvain Turbis ◽  
David Pothier

A current trend in the development of forest stand models is to use spatially explicit, individual-tree information to simulate forest dynamics with increased accuracy. By adding spatial information, such as tree coordinates, crown shape, and size, it is hypothesized that the computation of the model's driving function is improved over traditional competition indices, especially when simulating multistoried stands. In this paper, we want to test whether computationally demanding competition indices outperform traditional indices in predicting mean basal area increment. The study was undertaken in old, uneven-aged black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) BSP) stands in northeastern Quebec, Canada. The predictability of individual tree growth rates was related to crown dimensions and other stand and tree variables measured in the field. Data were collected from 90 trees coming from stands of varying site quality (range 9.6–16.5 m height at 50 years, age taken at 1 m) and age (range 66–257 years). Hegyis's distance-dependent competition index was found to be the most strongly correlated competition measure (r = 0.57) with mean basal area growth of the last 20 years. This value, 12% higher than the value obtained from the best distance-independent competition index (r = 0.45), clearly shows that precision gains can be achieved when estimating basal area increment with spatial indices in black spruce stands. Using indices computed from virtual hemispherical images did not prove superior to simpler distance-dependent indices based on their individual correlations with basal area increment. When included in a basal area increment model for the last 20 years of growth, however, the gains in precision were comparable to Hegyi's competition index. This indicates that indices derived from a hemispherical approach have some value in spatially explicit forest simulations models but that further tests using younger stands are needed to confirm this result in black spruce stands.


1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. K. Morgenstern ◽  
A. G. Corriveau ◽  
D. P. Fowler

Survival and total height of red spruce (Picearubens Sarg.) at ages 15 and 22 years from seed are reported. Twelve provenances distributed from North Carolina to Quebec were grown in three experiments each in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick; seven additional provenances were only partially represented. Variance, correlation, and regression analyses were made. Results at both ages were very similar. Provenance differences in survival were small at individual sites and significant only when the results from all nine sites were combined. Provenance differences in height were well expressed and significant in each of the three groups of tests, with northern provenances growing best. Several provenances were also relatively stable and performed well from site to site. Correlation and regression analyses showed that variation in height was more closely related to the degree of introgressive hybridization with black spruce (Piceamariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) than to latitude, elevation, or precipitation at the place of seed origin. These results were conditioned by development on open sites which are not typical red spruce sites.In contrast with expectations when the study was initiated, it is now apparent that provenances from the southern Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia and North Carolina are less variable than expected and not suitable for reforestation in Canada.


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