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Can drought tolerance of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) be increased through thinning?

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Abstract

To investigate whether drought tolerance of individual trees can be increased through the provision of more growing space, trees from a thinning experiment were analysed for reductions in radial growth during drought years and their subsequent recovery. Tree-ring widths were quantified on increment cores as well as stem discs of 32 trees from stands of a thinning trial established in 1974 in 27-year-old spruce stands in the Alpine Foreland of Southwest Germany. Three different thinning regimes of the trial were selected for this study: unthinned control (8 trees), moderate (13 trees) and heavy thinning (11 trees) intensities. All trees sampled were of a co-dominant to dominant canopy status. The standardisation of growth data was carried out using the software program ARSTAN (University of Arizona). For the year 1976—a widespread and severe drought year in Germany—we found year ring widths were not reduced compared to those of the pre-drought years for all treatments. However, we observed the formation of false year rings and resin ducts for this year in all trees investigated. The drought events in 1992 and 2003 led to severe growth depressions in the year of the drought event in all trees, regardless of previous thinning regimes. However, the resilience—the recovery of basal area growth in subsequent years—was significantly more rapid in trees from heavily thinned stands, even if the drought event occurred more than 10 years after the last thinning intervention. This indicates a shorter stress period for trees with more growing space, which may reduce the susceptibility to secondary pathogens or pest species such as bark beetles.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Dr. S. Fink and J. Grüner, Chair of Forest Botany, Freiburg University for the preparation of thin sections and Prof. Jürgen Huss, the initiator of the Göggingen thinning experiment, for the provision of mensurational data. The discussion with Dr. Tiemo Kahl initiated the expansion of our study on tree-ring morphology at the cell level. Julia Sohn received a PhD scholarship of the Landesgraduiertenförderung Baden-Württemberg. Many thanks also to Mr. Alfred Rupf and Mr. Jürgen Abele from the “Hofkammer des Hauses Württemberg” for supporting the experiment over the years. Two anonymous reviewers provided constructive comments that helped to improve the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Silviculture, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacherstr. 4, 79085, Freiburg, Germany

    Martin Kohler, Julia Sohn, Gregor Nägele & Jürgen Bauhus

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  1. Martin Kohler
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  2. Julia Sohn
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  3. Gregor Nägele
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  4. Jürgen Bauhus
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Correspondence to Martin Kohler.

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Communicated by C. Ammer.

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Kohler, M., Sohn, J., Nägele, G. et al. Can drought tolerance of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) be increased through thinning?. Eur J Forest Res 129, 1109–1118 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0397-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0397-9

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