Commerical tree planting techniques causing disease?

taxusbaccata

I recently visited a mixed broadleaf scheme on a farm.

It was basically 2 neighbouring monocultures - 1 block of solid cramped oak and 1 solid cramped Alder - each plant about 1 metre apart.

It dawned on me that this planting technique is a complete petri dish for infectious disease. The trees are stressed and likely exhausting the soil of micronutrients which their immune systems desperately need to function.

I am aware that maximising timber production is the aim in this commercial project but this high density artificial technique is similar to the causes of TB disease in humans or cattle and indeed many diseases in organisms in general. If there are too many of one species then natures system includes disease to cull the numbers back to prevent ecosystem collapse.

I am completely catastrophising or is there merit in this concern?

timfromtang

Well Taxxus,
I'd say your concerns are valid.
A diverse planting would be much more resilient to disease.
interconnected root networks of a wide diversity of mychorrizal fungi would be one of the mechanisms involved.
As experiments in conservation agriculture have proved, diversity does not equal loss of yield and with enough diversity significant gains in soil carbon accumulation can be made.
Healthier plants that have all their nutritional requirements met are MUCH more resilient to disease.
tim

Birdnuts

timfromtang wrote: »

Well Taxxus,
I'd say your concerns are valid.
A diverse planting would be much more resilient to disease.
interconnected root networks of a wide diversity of mychorrizal fungi would be one of the mechanisms involved.
As experiments in conservation agriculture have proved, diversity does not equal loss of yield and with enough diversity significant gains in soil carbon accumulation can be made.
Healthier plants that have all their nutritional requirements met are MUCH more resilient to disease.
tim

The sad thing is that such commonsense has never been explored or entertained by those who design and implement forestry policies in this country:(

Say my name

You are completely correct.

I was passing an ash plantation a few weeks ago and the same thought occurred to me. A monoculture of ash as tight as they can be. And probably imported specimens to make it worse.

blue5000

I reckon the experts went on a foreign junket for some of these close planting ideas. The only logic I can think of is they are trying to produce straight knot free timber by planting them so close together. A nurse species might have been a better option? How old is the plantation taxus?

ganmo

How would planting alternate rows of species sorl under the grant system?

tabby aspreme

The idea behind planting trees so close is to get them to grow straight, I planted oak in 2010 at 75cm spacing, and it's doing well, the regulations have since changed with the oak planted last spring at 1.5m spacing.

Odelay

It’s not practical to mix trees. I’ve seen larch mixed with spruce. The larch took off quicker and caused the spruce to bend towards the light. This makes the spruce of no use as a sawlog.

Imagine if someone informed by the internet decided that farmers should diversify by planting a row of carrots, another of barley and the third with rye grass. It would just be unworkable.

The right tree for the right soil.

timfromtang

Odelay wrote: »

It’s not practical to mix trees. I’ve seen larch mixed with spruce. The larch took off quicker and caused the spruce to bend towards the light. This makes the spruce of no use as a sawlog.

Imagine if someone informed by the internet decided that farmers should diversify by planting a row of carrots, another of barley and the third with rye grass. It would just be unworkable.

The right tree for the right soil.

Hi Odelay,
I'd like to invite you to visit our plantation. It is well mixed, we have about 34 different varieties of trees, there are some small blocks of some species, but mostly it is all mixed up.
I concur with the right tree for the right soil. The right mixture for the right soil works even better.
I agree that management is a challenge, we too have had problems with larch racing ahead and shading out oaks, but the larch are now being sawn into grand stakes/trailer floors etc and I think no long term harm ha been done.


As for rows of carrots, rows of barley etc all mixed up, perhaps you should have a look at some of the farmers practicing conservation agriculture in the states and other places, they're planting polycultures big style.


tim

taxusbaccata

blue5000 wrote: »

I reckon the experts went on a foreign junket for some of these close planting ideas. The only logic I can think of is they are trying to produce straight knot free timber by planting them so close together. A nurse species might have been a better option? How old is the plantation taxus?

Blue the plantation I saw was about 12 years old and thinned out. Still looking terribly unnatural. I can only imagine how much more healthier and productive those Oaks would be with the sufficiently spaced supporting root networks of Alders, Scots Pine and Birch connecting to its fungal networks.

taxusbaccata

Odelay wrote: »

It’s not practical to mix trees. I’ve seen larch mixed with spruce. The larch took off quicker and caused the spruce to bend towards the light. This makes the spruce of no use as a sawlog.

Imagine if someone informed by the internet decided that farmers should diversify by planting a row of carrots, another of barley and the third with rye grass. It would just be unworkable.

The right tree for the right soil.

Interestingly the soil scientists have found that mixed cultures of 8 species or more seems to dramatically transform the soil microbiome and plant health. Check out Dr Christine Jones (Australia)and Dr Elaine Ingham (USA). Conventional farmers in the USA whos soils haved collapsed using the agrichemical monoculture and GM methods and increasingly turning to mixed crop multicultures (covering crops, mixed grasses, trees etc) and other regenerative techniques to repair their collapsed and exhausted soils.

https://vimeo.com/80518559 - Conventional US farmers go regenerative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuM2tnX-KJI&t=2336s - Dr Christine Jones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzthQyMaQaQ&t=132s - Dr Elaine Ingham