Abstract
Understanding the changes in early growth efficiency (GE, growth/leaf area) may improve forest production through the selection of appropriate genotypes at early stages. We investigated different early growth responses of genotypes of Eucalyptus globulus (7), E. nitens (3), and E. nitens × E globulus (E. gloni) (7) in south-central Chile. To evaluate seasonal growth, plants of each genotype were established in a completely randomized block design in coarse sandy soil (i.e., low water holding capacity), with spring and summer irrigation. The current monthly increment (CMI) in wood volume (cm3 tree−1 month−1), and leaf area index (LAI, m2 m−2) were used to calculate GE at 4.1, 7.5, 10.4, 13.4, and 15.4 months of age, corresponding to five growing seasons (first summer, fall, winter, spring, and second summer). The interaction between genotype and season had a significant effect (p < 0.001) on LAI and GE, but not on CMI. In general, CMI values declined in winter, but increased greatly in the second summer. LAI values were stable during the first three seasons, increased in spring, and peaked in the second summer. During all seasons, a significant (p < 0.001) relationship between growth and LAI was observed, with differences in model coefficients among taxa. The highest GEs were observed mainly for E. globulus, which grew with small changes in the LAI. In general, our findings showed that eucalyptus genotypes with higher annual GEs presented higher seasonal GEs, except for some E. globulus genotypes. Changes in seasonal GEs among genotypes suggest that the same environment drives a significant response in the early growth stage as a consequence of climate influences on carbon allocation among different eucalyptus genotypes.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due it is part of a Chilean government project with private companies in the forestry sector but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge CMPC S.A. (Forestal Mininco) for supporting field installations and establishment of irrigation systems, Forest Productivity Cooperative and University of Concepcion for supporting field work, Federal University of Paraná, and CNPq (Brazilian Nacional Council for Scientific and Technological Development) for the Doctorate Researcher Scholarship of the first author (140596/2017-8).
Funding
This work was supported by the government of Chile via FONDEF Project Number IT16I10087; Fondecyt Project 1190835, CMPC S.A. Co.; ARAUCO S.A. Co.; Bioforest S.A. Co. and Universidad de Concepción.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by TWGO and RR. The first draft of manuscript was written by TWGO and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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de Oliveira, T.W.G., Rubilar, R., Sanquetta, C.R. et al. Differences in early seasonal growth efficiency and productivity of eucalyptus genotypes. New Forests 53, 811–829 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-021-09888-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-021-09888-5