The Scientific Basis of the Target Plant Concept: An Overview

Physiological and morphological responses of Pinus ponderosa seedlings to moisture limitations in the nursery and their implications for restoration

Successful establishment of Pinus ponderosa seedlings in the southwestern United States is often limited by stressful and harsh site conditions related to drought severity and severe disturbances such as wildfire and mining operations. Seedling quality has an important influence on outplanting performance, but nursery practices that typically employ optimal growing environments may also be limiting seedling morphological and physiological performance on stressful outplanting sites. To address this, a study was established to test alterations in seedling characteristics subjected to irrigation limitations during nursery culture and their subsequent outplanting performance. This study was conducted as two separate experiments: (1) a nursery conditioning experiment examined seedling development of three New Mexico seed sources exposed to three irrigation levels (low, moderate, and high); (2) a simulated outplanting experiment examined a subset of the seedlings from experiment 1 in a controlled outplanting environment consisting of two soil moisture conditions (mesic, maintained via irrigation and dry, irrigated only once). In the nursery study, the lack of interactions between seed source and irrigation main effects for most response variables indicate that low irrigation treatment level responses were consistent across a range of sources. Irrigation treatment levels from the nursery resulted in few morphological differences; however, the low irrigation level increased physiological parameters such as net photosynthetic rate and water use efficiency. In the simulated outplanting experiment, seedlings subjected to less irrigation in the nursery had greater mean height, diameter, needle dry mass, and stem dry mass; additionally, low irrigation levels in the nursery increased the amount of hydraulically active xylem and xylem flow velocity. Overall, this study shows that nursery culture irrigation limitations, regardless of the seed sources tested, can improve seedling morphology and physiological functioning under simulated dry outplanting conditions. This may ultimately translate to increased survival and growth performance on harsh outplanting sites.

Cultivation Using Coir Substrate and P or K Enriched Fertilizer Provides Higher Resistance to Drought in Ecologically Diverse Quercus Species

Nursery cultivation practices can be modified to increase resistance to water stress in forest seedlings following field establishment, which may be increasingly important under climate change. We evaluated the morphological (survival, growth) and physiological (chlorophyll fluorescence, leaf water potential) responses to water stress for three ecologically diverse Quercus species (Q. robur, Q. pubescens, and Q. ilex) with varying traits resulting from the combination of growing media (peat, coir) and fertilization (standard, P-enriched, K-enriched). For all species under water stress, seedlings grown in coir had generally higher growth than those grown in peat. Seedlings fertilized with P performed better, particularly for survival; conversely, K fertilization resulted in inconsistent findings. Such results could be explained by a combination of factors. P fertilization resulted in higher P accumulation in seedlings, while no K accumulation was observed in K fertilized seedlings. As expected, the more drought-sensitive species, Q. robur, showed the worst response, while Q. pubescens had a drought resistance equal or better to Q. ilex despite being classified as intermediate in drought resistance in Mediterranean environments.

Biochar and/or Compost to Enhance Nursery-Produced Seedling Performance: A Potential Tool for Forest Restoration Programs

Today, the use of nursery-produced seedlings is the most widely adopted method in forest restoration processes. To ensure and enhance the performance of transplanting seedlings into a specific area, soil amendments are often used due to their ability to improve soil physicochemical properties and, in turn, plant growth and development. The aim of the present study was to evaluate Populus euramericana growth and development on a growing substrate added with biochar and compost, both alone and in combination. To accomplish this aim, a pot experiment was performed to test biochar and/or compost effects on growing substrate physicochemical characteristics, plant morpho-physiological traits, and plant phenology. The results showed that biochar and/or compost improved growing substrate properties by increasing electrical conductivity, cation exchange capacity, and nutrient concentrations. On the one hand, these ameliorations accelerated poplar growth and development. On the other hand, amendments did not have positive effects on some plant morphological traits, although compost alone increased plant height, and very fine and fine root length. The combined use of biochar and compost did not show any synergistic or cumulative beneficial effects and led to a reduction in plant growth and development. In conclusion, compost alone seems to be the best solution in both ameliorating substrate characteristics and increasing plant growth, highlighting the great potential for its proper and effective application in large-scale forest restoration strategies.