Abstract
Over a period of nine years, 922 kg ha-1 of N was added in eight applications to a 16 year old P. radiata stand in a low rainfall area in north-east Tasmania, Australia. Fertilizing lifted current annual increment from 8.5 m3ha-1 for the unfertilized plots, to 31 m3ha-1. Increased growth was associated with improved health of the trees. Biomass measurements showed that there was a large increase in needle retention as well as needle mass on the fertilized trees. Concentration of N was also higher in fertilized trees. Fertilized plots contained 467 kg ha-1 more N than unfertilized plots. This represented about 50 percent of the N applied. Most of this extra N was in the forest crop and in the surface 10 cm of the soil. There was no increase in organic carbon in the surface soil with the result that the C/N ratio was reduced from a very high 28 to 17.
Despite the high growth rates attained in the N fertilized plots, the failure to increase soil organic matter and the loss from the site of much of the applied N indicated that long term improvement of growth of these low rainfall sites was unlikely. Growth would only be maintained with continued N fertilizer additions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams M A and Attiwill P M 1988 Nutrient cycling in forests of north-east Tasmania. Research Report No. 1, Tasmanian For. Res. Council, Hobart. 214 p.
Ballard R 1984 Fertilization of plantations. In Nutrition of Plantation Forests. Eds. G D Bowen and E K S Nambiar. pp 327–360. Academic Press, London.
Baskerville G L 1965 Estimation of dry weight of tree components and total standing crop in conifer stands. Ecology 46, 867–869.
Beets P N and Madgwick H A I 1988 Above-ground dry matter and nutrient content of Pinus radiata as affected by lupin, fertilizer, thinning, and stand age. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 18, 43–64.
Beets P N and Pollock D S 1987 Uptake and accumulation of nitrogen in Pinus radiata stands as related to age and thinning. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 17, 353–71.
Brix H and Ebell L F 1969 Effects of nitrogen fertilization on growth, leaf area, and photosynthesis rate in Douglas-fir. For. Sci. 15, 189–196.
Bruce D and Schumacher F X 1950 Forest Mensuration. McGraw Hill, New York. 483 p.
Davis G R, Neilsen W A and McDavitt J G 1983 Root distribution of Pinus radiata related to soil characteristics in five Tasmanian soils. Aust. J. Soil Res. 21, 165–71.
Ellis R C, Neilsen W A, McDavitt J G and Thirkell D S 1975 Early growth of radiata pine in relation to a land classification system on Forestier peninsula in Tasmania. Aust. For. 37, 245–257.
Foerster W 1990 Zusammenfassende ertragskundliche Auswertung der Kiefern-Düngungsversuchsflächen in Bayern. Forstliche Forschungsberichte München Nr. 105, 328 pp.
Gordon A and Graham J D 1986 Changes in Pinus radiata stem form in response to nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 16, 41–54.
Hunter I R, Graham J D, Prince J M and Nicholson G M 1986 What site factors determine the 4-year basal area response of Pinus radiata to nitrogen fertilizer? N.Z. J. For. Sci. 16, 30–40.
Hunter I R and Hoy G F 1983 Growth and nutrition of Pinus radiata on a recent coastal sand as affected by nitrogen fertilizer. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 13, 3–13.
Hunter I R, Hunter J A C and Graham J D 1987 Pinus radiata stem volume increment and its relationship to needle mass, foliar and soil nutrients, and fertilizer inputs. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 17, 67–75.
Ingestad T 1982 Relative addition rate and external concentration; driving variables used in plant nutrition research. Plant, Cell Environ. 5, 443–453.
Khanna P K, Falkiner R A and Raison R J 1987 Leaching of fertilizer nitrogen and consequent effects on the chemistry of a forest soil. In Nitrogen Cycling in Temperate Agricultural Systems. Eds. P E Bacon, J Evans, R Storrier and A C Taylor. pp 282–288. Australian Soc. of Soil Sci., Riverina, W.A., Branch.
Madgwick H A I, Jackson D S and Knight P J 1977 Aboveground dry matter, energy, and nutrient contents of trees in an age series of Pinus radiata plantations. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 7, 445–68.
Madgwick H A I and Oliver G R 1985 Dry matter content and production of close-spaced Pinus radiata. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 15, 135–41.
Malkonen E 1989 Changes in nitrogen status in forest ecosystems in Finland: Estimation on the basis of long-term fertilization experiments. Proceedings of Symposium on Environmental Threats to Forest and Other Natural Ecosystems. University of Oulu, Finland. pp 105–113.
Malkonen E 1990 Estimation of nitrogen saturation on the basis of long-term fertilization experiments. Plant and Soil 128, 75–82.
Mead D J and Gadgil R L 1978 Fertilizer use in established radiata pine stands in New Zealand. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 8, 105–134.
Mead D J and Pritchett W L 1975 Fertilizer movement in a slash pine ecosystem. II. N distribution after two growing seasons. Plant and Soil 43, 467–478.
Melin J and Nommik H 1988 Fertilizer nitrogen distribution in a Pinus sylvestris/Picea abies ecosystem, central Sweden. Scand. J. For. Res. 3, 3–15.
Neilsen W A and Crane W J B 1977 The nutrition of radiata pine in the Fingal plantations. Bull. No. 5, Tasmanian For. Comm., Hobart. 34 p.
Neilsen W A, Davis G R, McDavitt J G and Pataczek W 1984 Growth and nutrient uptake of Pinus radiata seedlings over the first three years following treatment with nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers. Aust. For. Res. 14, 1–10.
Neilsen W A, McDavitt J G and Pataczek W 1981 Response of radiata pine at Fingal, Tasmania, to aerial fertilization. Aust. For. 44, 26–34.
Ovington J D, Forrest W G and Armstrong J S 1968 Tree biomass estimation. In Symposium on Primary Productivity and Mineral Cycling in Natural Ecosystems. Ed. H E Young, pp 4–31. Orono: University of Maine Press.
Raison R J, Khanna P K, Connell M J and Falkiner R A 1990. Effects of water availability and fertilization on nitrogen cycle in a stand of Pinus radiata. For. Ecol. Manag. 30, 31–43.
Rapp M, Leclerc M Cl and Lossaint P 1979 The nitrogen economy in a Pinus pinea L. stand. For. Ecol. Manag. 2, 221–231.
Raupach M, Boardman R and Clarke A R P 1969 Growth rates of Pinus radiata D. Don in relation to foliar levels of nitrogen and phosphorus for plantations in the south-east of South Australia. CSIRO Australia, Soil publication No. 26.
Rennie P J 1966 A forest sampling procedure for nutrient-uptake studies. Com. For. Rev. 45, 119–127.
Snowdon P and Waring H D 1990 Growth responses by Pinus radiata to combinations of superphosphate, urea and thinning type. For. Ecol. Manag. 30, 313–325.
Snowdon P, Waring H D and Woolons R C 1981 Effect of fertilizer and weed control on stem form and average taper in plantation grown pines. Aust. For. Res. 11, 209–221.
Tamm C O 1968 An attempt to assess the optimum nitrogen level in Norway spruce under field conditions. Studia Forestalia Suecica No 61, 67 p.
Waring H D 1969 The role of nitrogen in the maintenance of productivity in conifer plantations. Comm. For. Rev. 48, 226–237.
Weetman G F, Roberge M R and Meng C H 1980 Black spruce: 15 year growth and microbiological responses to thinning and fertilization. Can. J. For. Res. 10, 502–509.
White C S, Gosz J R, Horner J D and Moore D I 1988 Seasonal, annual, and treatment-induced variation in available nitrogen pools and nitrogen-cycling processes in soils of two Douglas-fir stands. Biol. Fertil. Soils 6, 93–99.
Whyte A G D and Mead D J 1976 Quantifying responses to fertilizer in the growth of radiata pine. N.Z. J. For. Sci. 6, 431–442.
Woolons R C and Will G M 1975 Increasing growth in high production radiata pine stands by nitrogenous fertilisers. N.Z. J. For. 20, 243–253.
Zarcinas B A and Cartwright B 1983 Analysis of soil and plant materials by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry. CSIRO Aust. Div. Soils Tech. Pap. No 45, 1–36.
Zoettl H W 1990 Remarks on the effect of nitrogen deposition to forest ecosystems. Plant and Soil 128, 83–89.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Neilsen, W.A., Pataczek, W., Lynch, T. et al. Growth response of Pinus radiata to multiple applications of nitrogen fertilizer and evaluation of the quantity of added nitrogen remaining in the forest system. Plant Soil 144, 207–217 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00012877
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00012877