© 1989 by Institute of Chartered Foresters
The Effect of Soil Quality on the Yield Class of a Range of Forest Species Grown on the Slieve Bloom Mountain and Foothills
Teagasc, Oak Park Research Centre Carlow, Ireland
Forest and Wildlife Service, Department of Energy and Forestry Dublin, Ireland
The Slieve Bloom mountain region covering an area of approximately 36000 ha in the Central Plain of Ireland contains a wide variety of soils, which have been planted mainly with Sitka spruce, Norway spruce and lodgepole pine and smaller amounts of Japanese larch, Scots pine and Douglas fir. These species show a wide range of yield classes when grown on the different soils. Sitka spruce gave a weighted mean yield class of 19.2, 16.5 and 9.9, on the brown earths (Baunreagh Series), peaty gleys (Slieve Bloom Series) and blanket bog (Aughty Series), respectively. Yield class differences were also found on different soil types within the same soil series: Sitka spruce had a weighted mean yield class of 21.7 and 17.1 on the normal moderately deep phase and the shallow steep phase of the Baunreagh Series, respectively. Mean yield classes ranged from 13.7 to 17.4 on the different phases of the Slieve Bloom Series and from 9.6 to 11.1 on the deep and shallow phases of the Aughty Series, respectively.