Comparison of growth of northern red oak (Quercus rubra L.) and durmast oak (Quercus petraea [Mattusch.] Liebl.) under similar growth conditions

Abstract

The impacts of climate change on forest stands are manifested in different ways and intensity. Changes in the species composition of forest stands due to the different tolerance of forest species to the effects of climate change are one of the consequences too. In this context, introduced tree species are often mentioned as a possible replacement for dying autochthonous species. Of the deciduous species, it is mainly northern red oak. The aim of this paper is to compare selected quantitative (number of trees, basal area, merchantable volume, basal area increment and volume increment) and qualitative (crop trees) characteristics in one stand of the northern red oak at the age of 54 years and in two stands of durmast oak (age 57 and 58 years) in comparable site conditions. Achieved results showed higher values in all investigated quantitative parameters in the northern red oak stand compared to durmast oak stands. The merchantable volume in the northern red oak stand was 473 m3 per hectare in the tended subplots and 742 m3 ha–1 in the control ones. On the subplots with durmast oak, it was only from 228 to 289 m3 ha–1 in the subplots with thinning and 226 to 357 m3 ha–1 in the control areas. The same results were obtained for the category of crop trees. It means 230 m3 ha–1 for the northern red oak and 28 to 121 m3 ha–1 for durmast oak. The well-known fact about the higher quantitative production of the northern red oak compared to durmast oak was confirmed.