Canadian Forest Service Publications
Managing plantation density through initial spacing and commercial thinning: Yield results from a 60-year-old red pine experiment. 2021. Thiffault, N.; Hoepting, M.; Fera, F.; Lussier, J.-M.; Larocque, G.R.; Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 51(2): 181-189
Year: 2021
Issued by: Laurentian Forestry Centre
Catalog ID: 40322
Language: English
CFS Availability: PDF (request by e-mail)
Available from the Journal's Web site. †
DOI: 10.1139/cjfr-2020-0246
† This site may require a fee
Abstract
We report on a 60-year-old red pine (Pinus resinosa Aiton) spacing trial experiment located in Ontario, Canada, that included the combinations between six initial spacings (from 1.2 to 3.0 m) and the presence or absence of a commercial thinning (CT) regime, as well as their impacts on quadratic mean diameter (QMD) and stand volume yield. The CT regime, initiated at age 30, targeted a residual basal area (BA) of 38 m2·ha1 after each of four entries.Without thinning, as initial spacing increased, QMD increased; gross and net volume production peaked in the 2.1–2.4 m spacings. With thinning, similar trends with spacing were evident for QMD, although piece sizes were larger and differences between spacings were lower. The immediate increase ofmean tree size caused by tree selection explained most of the differences in QMD between thinned and unthinned plots. Thinning to a common target BA resulted in similar standing volume across spacings. Cumulative gross yield was similar between spacings of
