Scientific publications

The resources of mature coniferous wood in the Northwest of Russia have been depleted. This fact demands the intensive reproduction of wood. The basic way of the rapid procurement of large-sized and pulpwood deal is the establishment of plantation crops. The leading factors, determining the growth rate of plantation crops, are thinning and fertilizing. The purpose of the research is the wood quality assessment of the middle-aged spruce crops under the intensive rate of growth. The spruce crops were planted in the bilberry site with different initial density (1, 2, 3, and 4 thous. crops / Ha). Thinning and fertilizing were performed in the course of their growth. Thinning in combination with the mineral fertilizers (complex thinning) encouraged an increase of the annual ring width depending on the density of crops by 14... 49 % during the fertilizing period. Complex thinning was best reflected on the growth of crops with the initial density of 3.0 thous. crops / Ha. Fertilizing and thinning reduced the density of the spruce wood by 1... 10 % for 4... 7 years. The average density of the 41-year-old crops in the variants with the same initial density had no significant differences, and reached high values (365... 379 kg / m3). According to that index the wood of spruce crops was not beyond the average values of naturally growing spruce stands of the taiga zone. The spruce crops of 41-years of age had the following qualitative growth rates: the number of annual rings in 1 cm was 3.4... 4.2; the average width of the annual ring - 2.4... 2.9 mm; the percentage of latewood - 21... 28. These indexes characterize the wood quality as high.