The impact of leaf damage on the growth of young silver birch seedlings with and without additional nutrient supply was investigated by simulating leaf-insect damage and applying different levels (25%, 50% and 75%) of artificial defoliation. Based on field-practical and cost-effective methods, we determined how fertilization practices compensate for foliage loss, and the combined effect on silver birch seedling growth. The mineral fertilizers applied to the 25-75%-defoliated silver birch seedlings reduced the growth in aboveground biomass compared to the fertilized but undamaged seedlings. Our results showed that when the birch seedlings received more nutrients they did not compensate for the loss of foliar mass. However, the seedlings loosing part of their foliar mass and receiving no additional fertilizers did compensate for the foliage loss and their root growth was not weakened, using soil nutrients more effectively. Mineral fertilization up to optimal nutritional balance could be a beneficial tool for increasing growth rate and biomass accumulation in the short-term period. However, our study demonstrated that additional fertilization does not necessarily lead to growth compensation of partly defoliated young birch trees.
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Citation
Araminiene V, Varnagiryte-Kabašinskiene I, Stakenas V (2016). Response of artificially defoliated Betula pendula seedlings to additional soil nutrient supply. iForest 10: 281-287. - doi: 10.3832/ifor2086-009
Academic Editor
Gianfranco Minotta
Paper history
Received: Apr 12, 2016
Accepted: Nov 13, 2016
First online: Dec 13, 2016
Publication Date: Feb 28, 2017
Publication Time: 1.00 months
© SISEF - The Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology 2016
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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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