Variability in juvenile growth behaviour of thirty lodgepole pine provenances - Part 3 field tests

Project number: EP 657.03

District: Rocky Mountain Forest District

Objectives

• To test the validity of patterns of geographic variation derived from the study of physiological and morphological variations among seedlings in two nurseries
• To study the phenotypic stability of lodgepole pine provenances at two latitudes
• To determine the effects of nursery source upon the survival and growth of 30 contorta provenances at two latitudes

Treatment

Thirty provenances of lodgepole pine, ranging from Haida Gwaii to Yellowstone National Park are being tested. They were grown at two nurseries (Red Rock and Cowichan Lake Experiment Station).

Layout

• There are two blocks
• Each block contains two plots, with each plot containing stock grown in one nursery
• Within each plot are 30 lines, with provenances randomly assigned to the lines
• Provenances are identified by labels at the start of each line

History

• 1971 plantation establishment and first assessments
• 1972-1979 annual assessments
• 1980-1990 assessments on five-year schedule
• 1998 plantation maintenance and district communication

Publications

Ying, C.C., C.F. Thompson and L. Herring 1989. Geographic variation, nursery effects and early selection in lodgepole pine. Can. J. For. Res. 19: 823-841.

Rehfeldt G.E., C.C. Ying, D.L. Spittlehouse, and D.A. Hamilton. 1999. Genetic responses to climate in Pinus contorta: niche breadth, climate change, and reforestation. Ecol. Monogr. 69: 375-407

Rehfeldt, G.E. 2000. Genes Climate and Wood. Leslie L. Schaffer Lectureship in Forest Science, U.B.C. Vancouver, B.C. February 2, 2000.

Comments

In addition to early growth assessments, other factors assessed between 1972 and 1980 included the differential damage cause by over-winter cold temperatures to the different provenances, and a relatively high incidence of pine "toppling" that occurred in this plantation.