Forest fertilization: Trends in knowledge and practice compared to agriculture

Abstract

Plantation forestry continues to intensify and grow in area, with a concomitant increase in fertilizer demand. Virtually no fertilizer is used on non-plantation forest systems. The scale of fertilizer use per ha per year in a small proportion of plantation systems is now similar to some agricultural production systems, but the total area of plantation forestry remains only a few percent of that used for agriculture. Hence, in a global context, forestry is a minor user of fertilizers. In relation to the knowledge base for fertilizer management, forestry and agriculture have similar practical questions that drive research, i.e. nutritional diagnosis and the development of fertilizer prescriptions that optimize production, environmental and economic goals. Much of this research is soil-climate-species-management specific. During the past few decades, solution culture methods were developed that maintain stable internal nutrient concentrations, which were essential for improving our understanding of nutrient-growth relationships. The development of plant production models that include the mechanistic simulation of nutrient supply and uptake are at an early stage of development. Plantation forestry and agriculture lack a mechanistic basis for evaluating base cation availability that accounts for Al-pH-root interactions. Further developments in this field could assist in rationalizing the use of lime. There is a lack of resources available in plantation forestry, and probably also in agriculture in some countries, to develop and refine calibrations of traditional types of soil and foliar analyses. Further testing of soil solution approaches is warranted. Further research on resource use efficiency, wood quality, rhizosphere relations, and mixed-species systems in relation to fertilization is also warranted.

Soil phosphorus responses to chronic nutrient fertilisation and seasonal drought in a humid lowland forest, Panama

“…; and K is added as KCl at an annual dose 50 kg K ha -1 year -1 . Similar doses are used in forestry (Smethurst 2010) and have also been used in tropical montane studies (100-150 kg N, 50-65 kg P, 50 kg K, e.g. Tanner et al 1992).…”

Crescimento da acácia-negra em resposta a aplicação de nitrogênio, fósforo e potássio

“…Existem poucos estudos sobre o efeito obtido com a adição de fertilizantes em essências florestais (GONÇALVES; BARROS, 1999), e que as características e quantidade de adubos a serem aplicados dependerão das necessidades nutricionais da espécie utilizada, da fertilidade do solo, da forma de reação dos adubos com o solo, da eficiência dos adubos, de fatores de ordem econômica (GONÇALVES, 1995;GONÇALVES;BARROS, 1999;SMETHURST, 2010) e da disponibilidade hídrica (PARDOS et al, 2005;RYAN, 2010). Portanto, para a nutrição adequada das árvores, deve-se balancear a sua demanda com a oferta de nutrientes, no tempo e no espaço (BARROS; NOVAIS, 1990).…”

Optimal nitrogen application rates for three intensively-managed hardwood tree species in the southeastern USA

“…All crop plants, including trees, can effectively use only a finite amount of N (Brooks and Coulombe, 2009;Ngoze et al, 2008;Smethurst, 2010;Smethurst et al, 2003), and excess is generally lost through leaching (Lee and Jose, 2005;Van Miegroet et al, 1994). For example, trees only maximize wood production when an adequate supply of N is received (Ingestad and Ågren, 1991;Kozlowski and Pallardy, 2002).…”