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Home → Publications → Tree Planters' Notes → Tree Planters' Notes Issue 53 (1962) → Fertilizers Increase Seed Production of Shortleaf Pine in Missouri

Fertilizers Increase Seed Production of Shortleaf Pine in Missouri

Recent interest in setting up formal seed production areas for shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) has directed attention to means of increasing the viable seed per tree and per acre. Shortleaf pine produces sporadic crops of seed in the Missouri Ozarks where soils usually are low in fertility. One possible way to improve seed production is to use fertilizers, particularly nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. As a trial, commercial fertilizers containing several combinations of these nutrients were applied to the soil in a stand thinned specifically for seed production. This initial study was made in a 37-year-old, even-aged, natural stand of shortleaf pine on the Willow Springs Ranger District, Missouri National Forests, in Douglas County, Missouri. The stand is on a nearly flat upper slope with a northwest exposure. Soil type is Clarksville stony loam. The site was once cleared and cultivated. When the study began in 1958, the trees ranged from 8 to 16 inches in diameter and had a basal area of about 90 square feet per acre. Most of the less desirable trees had been removed in thinnings made in 1950 and 1956. The understory consisted of 2 to 5 thousand hardwood trees per acre.


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Author(s): Kenneth A. Brinkman

Publication: Tree Planters' Notes - Issue 53 (1962)