Integrated establishment systems

 

Foresty Commission programme manager:	Helen McKay
Research contact and location:	Forest Management Division, Forest Research

The overall objective is to research and advise the forest industry on procedures to improve establishment success and cost effectiveness whilst promoting sustainable forestry practices. The programme aims to provide management tools and advice encompassing all aspects of tree establishment through increased knowledge and understanding of physiological processes.

Within the programme, areas of research expertise include:

• planting stock quality;
• establishment techniques;  
• stocking density assessment procedures;  
• nutritional sustainability;  
• fertiliser application to young crops;  
• root architecture modelling;  
• tree ecophysiology and molecular ecology.

Current and agreed future work areas are:

1. Reduction of chemical inputs during establishment

• Use of nutritional mixtures;  
• Nutrition of restock sites;  
• Targeting fertiliser applications through foliar analysis.

2. Modelling of establishment and early growth

• Predictive computer model for establishment success and growth; 
• Development of decision support tool – the Establishment Management Information System [EMIS] - for delivery and analysis of silvicultural establishment techniques; 
• Predicting long term effects of early growth benefits.
  

3. Plant quality

• Development and release of dormancy and cold tolerance; 
• Successful establishment, with particular reference to new native woodlands; 
• Evaluating new technology (e.g. planting machines).
  

4. Root architecture

• Cultivation and root behaviour; 
• Modelling of root architecture development.

Research Information Notes are planned on the use of conifer mixtures, nursery and establishment best practice for larch, afforestation using planting machines, the development and persistence of multiple stems, and the use of direct seeding.  Researchers involved in the programme will also produce a number of papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals on topics including the establishment and growth of trees planted into peat mounds on brash mats, the vegetative propagation of hybrid larch’, the ecotypic preferences of oak and the ecophysiology of natural regeneration under continuous cover forestry.

Commissioned reports

No reports available at this time