Canadian Forest Service Publications
Managing plantation density for red pine: 60-Year-Old spacing trial experiment. 2021. Thiffault, N.; Hoepting, M.K.; Fera, J.; Lussier, J.-M.; Larocque, G.R. Canadian Wood Fibre Centre, Natural Ressources Canada. NRC Research Press 51: 181-189.
Year: 2021
Issued by: Laurentian Forestry Centre
Catalog ID: 40514
Language: English
Availability: PDF (download)
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 of mean 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
