Background and Purpose: The declining and dieback of lowland oak forests as the result of global climate change, as well as the attack of various pathogenic organisms, industrial pollution, and other negative effects reduce acorn yield and will continue to do so in the future. As a result of this fact, the areas on which artificial regeneration will be applied by planting seedlings will have to be increased. The artificial regeneration process is more expensive than the natural one, so protection measures need to be applied to minimize the loss of young seedlings. Materials and Methods: Experimental plots were set up in the forest area of Spačva Basin. A completely randomized block design experiment in four repetitions was used, in which four variants of planting and protection of oak seedlings were examined. We tested polypropylene tree shelters and hydrophilic superabsorbent based on maize starch. Heights of the plants were measured by measuring tape, and survival was registered by numbering of dead and living plants. For statistical purposes, we have used analysis of variance (repeated measure ANOVA), which allows us to prove statistically significant difference between morphological traits of studied variants. Results: Two years after planting, the lowest level of survival was found in unprotected seedlings (79.5%), while tree shelters provided the best conditions for seedlings survival (88.75%). In the case with the hydrophilic granules Zeba the result is slightly worse. When analyzing average height in a particular case, significantly higher plants are recorded in cases where the polypropylene tree shelters are used. The average height, with tree shelters (128.27 cm), is more than three times higher than the unprotected seedlings (37.97 cm). The addition of hydrophilic granules did not show a statistically significant difference. In cases where the seedlings were not under the tree shelter protection, the effect of hydrophilic granules was also not statistically significant. Conclusions: Sheltering accelerated the height growth of the planted oaks substantially and also provided best conditions for seedlings survival. During the research period the usage of Zeba did not justify the purpose for which it was applied. Although the first results are promising in order to gain a complete insight into the potential of tree shelters it is necessary to record the changes and maintain the experiment for a further 2-3 years with quantification of other harmful factors that may appear (drought, game etc.) after which a more reliable judgment regarding their usefulness could be provided.
Background and Purpose:The process of joining the market competition by the company "Croatian Forests", managing state forests in Croatia, is related to the transformation of the company into a trading company. This means that beside the biological and ecological goals in managing forests, the special attention is to be paid to business operations with the highest economic outputs, reduced costs and increased income. In order to enhance the regeneration of pedunculate oak forests in present day changing ecological and challenging economic conditions, as our proposal, is implementation of one of the artificial methods of regeneration pedunculate oak forests by planting seedlings protected with polypropylene tree shelters. Materials and Methods:The paper deal with existing knowledge about the conditions and characteristics of two methods of oak stand regeneration and analyzed data of current norms, standards and prices for each of these methods. The analysis compared the two methods: method of regeneration with unprotected seedlings, and seedlings protected with polypropylene tree shelters. Results and Conclusions:The research results showed that in comparison to the common seedling planting method, this method of pedunculate oak stand regeneration on difficult terrains with complex stand conditions is ecologically and economically more beneficial. Abstract Citation: LIOVIĆ B, TOMAŠIĆ Ž, STANKIĆ I 2013 Ecological and Economic Advantages of Using Polypropylene Tree Shelters in Lowland Oak Forests. South-East Eur For 4 (2): 115-125 LIOVIC B, TOMAŠIĆ Ž, STANKIĆ I 116 SEEFOR 4 (2): 115-125 © CFRI http://www.seefor.eu
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