Topic 5.3: Maximizing Plantation Productivity

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Content

Topic Introduction

Following the establishment of the plantation project, when all the trees are in the ground, the options for increasing the value of the wood grown become more limited. Ways to increase the profitability of the plantation include (1) manipulation of site resources to increase the volume or mass of trees and (2) silviculture to improve the value of the trees. Among the crucial site resources – light, water and nutrients – it is usually only nutrients that can be managed to improve tree growth rates. The topic explores the application of nutrients to increase plantation productivity in the context of the allocation of net primary productivity through different stages of forest stand development. This approach emphasizes the importance and role of nutrient cycling in natural forest stands in building site resources and maintaining forest productivity. These principles are applied to intensively established plantation forests to highlight the importance of tree residues, produced during the life of the plantation, and at harvest, in maintaining and building plantation productivity. Lastly, the silvicultural techniques of thinning and pruning that increase the value of trees grown is discussed. This includes the theory and management of tree growing space through thinning and the production of more clear-wood (knot-free timber) through pruning.

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