Why Healthy Pine Seedlings Die after They Leave the Nursery

Abstract

Artificial regeneration is successful when high-performing seedlings are transported with care to the planting site, stored for a short period in an environment without desiccation or fungal growth, and planted in a deep hole, so roots are in contact with moist soil. One of the requirements for success is the ability to avoid common planting mistakes. Due, in part, to the use of container stock plus an increase in rainfall, the average first-year survival of pine seedlings (89%) in the southern United States is about 15% greater now than 45 years ago. However, when survival is less than 50% six months after planting, some landowners seek reimbursement for their loss. Some assume poor seedling quality was the cause without realizing that anaerobic soils or sudden freeze events, shallow planting holes, pruning roots, a lack of rain or underground insects can kill pines. With a focus on pines planted in the southern United States, we list non-nursery factors that have killed seedlings in North America, Africa and Europe.

Mechanical site preparation severity mediates one-year-survival response to summer drought in planted tree seedlings

“…De ning a threshold value above which the effect of MSP may be considered as practically signi cant requires expert knowledge and data on long-term plantation dynamics and economic value that were not available for our study. Previous studies performed on Pinus taeda L. (South et al, 2023) suggest that the bene t of MSP during the rainy years that we observed in our study was too small to substantially increase stand value at harvest and, therefore, could be considered as negligible.…”

“…These observations provide robustness to our results since our results apply to tree species that show a wide range of responses to summer drought. Similarly, due to the limited number of experimental sites, we were not able to observe any impacts of vegetation or soil type, although these factors are known to have primary effects on seedling response to MSP (South et al, 2023), and forest managers should use their own expert knowledge to translate the results of our study to speci c site conditions. In many European countries, 1-year-survival is used as a criterion to evaluate planting success, with a threshold value set between 80 and 90% (Mataruga et al, 2023).…”

“…Ensuring a high level of plantation success, even under hot and dry weather conditions, is a prerequisite to using plantation as a management measure to adapt forest ecosystems to future climatic conditions. Methods to produce and plant tree seedlings have evolved in the last decades and have signi cantly improved plantation success (Chirino et al, 2009;Grossnickle, 2018;South et al, 2023), but the risk of failure still remains high when conditions get harsh, and especially when rainfall is low and temperatures are high. There is ample evidence that hot and dry conditions during the growing season are deleterious to seedling establishment and planting success (Padilla and Pugnaire, 2007).…”

Seedling Morphological Characteristics on Survival, Uniformity, and Growth during a Full Short Rotation in Eucalyptus grandis x E. urophylla Plantation

“…Particularly, treatment C, representing under prime seedlings, exhibited a 15% higher loss compared to the other treatments. South et al [34] showed that for Pinus, many problems can justify the losses, for example in transportation or during the process of removing seedlings from…”

The Production Chain of Tree Seedlings, from Seeds to Sustainable Plantations: An Essential Link for the Success of Reforestation and Restoration Programs in the Context of Climate Change

“…Their findings suggest that seedlings with a sufficiently large root-collar diameter and a young age, regardless of seedling type, can grow taller than the surrounding vegetation more quickly. In a literature review, South et al [26] reviewed and discussed the various factors that govern the successes and failures of reforestation and restoration programs with healthy pine seedlings after leaving the nursery. With a focus on pine seedlings planted in the southern United States, the authors also listed non-nursery factors that have killed pine seedlings in North America, Africa, and Europe.…”