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Home → Publications → Tree Planters' Notes → Tree Planters' Notes Volume 22, Number 1 (1971) → Top Pruning May Benefit Yellow Birch Planting Stock

Top Pruning May Benefit Yellow Birch Planting Stock

Although good quality stock of yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis Britton) can be easily produced in the nursery, many plantings fail because of poor sites and lack of care after planting. Two recent, small-scale planting trials, both under partial shade, suggest that top pruning at planting time can increase survival and growth during the critical establishment period. The initial planting was made in the spring of 1967 using sorted 2-0 stock relatively uniform in size but slightly smaller than the stock recommended by Stoeckeler and Jones (1957). Equal numbers of seedlings were slit-bar-planted in: (1) scalped spots in a sodded opening, (2) a 120-foot diameter opening cut in secondgrowth northern hardwoods the preceding year, and (3) a shelter wood cutting in young second-growth under about 50 percent of full sunlight. All seedlings failed in the sodded opening the first year because of fall frosts. At the end of the second growing season, survival of untreated seedlings was 69 percent in the circular opening and 77 percent under the shelterwood cutting.


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Author(s): Richard M. Godman, Gilbert A. Mattson

Publication: Tree Planters' Notes - Volume 22, Number 1 (1971)

Volume: 22

Number: 1