© 1951 by Institute of Chartered Foresters
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY TO INJURY BY EXPERIMENTAL FREEZING OF STRAINS OF EUROPEAN LARCH (LARIX DECIDUA MILL.) OF VARYING GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGIN
Department of Forestry, University of Oxford
Experience in the field shows European larch to be normally susceptible to frost damage when grown in Great Britain. The paper describes fully a series of experiments in freezing in a refrigerator carried out both before and after the Second World War which show frequent significant differences in degree of damage between larch of different provenances. If latitude is held constant, there is a fairly high and significant positive correlation between state of flushing and amount of injury. When elevation is held constant, there is a significant negative correlation between amount of injury and latitude. There is evidence that provenances vary in relative hardiness at different times during the early part of the growing season. Field observation suggests that most of the serious injury to European larch occurs during March and early April and that therefore provenances which when grown in Great Britain are relatively hardy during the late winter and early spring are those likely to be most suited to its climate. The work was carried out with too few provenances for anything more than general suggestions to be made, but results confirm what is observed in the field: in spite of the poor results often obtained hitherto, further work might show that there are strains in the Alps relatively good for growing in Great Britain; though the most reliable strains are likely to be of British origin with, probably, those from the Sudeten Mountains or Poland as next best.
Received 1 June 1950.
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