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Forestry 1992 65(4):435-451; doi:10.1093/forestry/65.4.435
© 1992 by Institute of Chartered Foresters
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Competitive Interactions between Norway Spruce and Scots Pine at Gisburn Forest, NW England

R. D. YANAI *

Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Merlewood Research Station Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria LA11 9JU, England
Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Edinburgh Edinburgh EH9 3JU, Scotland

Species mixtures, although promising for improving the growth of spruce on nitrogendeficient sites, carry a risk of competition from the admixed nurse species. The mixture of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Norway spruce (Picea abies) planted at Gisburn Forest in 1955, in which nutritional benefits have been observed, provided a unique opportunity to study competition between these species. Pure plots of both species as well as the mixture were replicated in three blocks, allowing the effects of interplanting on the survival and mean diameter of each species to be tested statistically. Further, the grouped arrangement of the species in mixed plots presented a variety of competitive configurations between the two species.

Instead of demonstrating the nursing benefit of pine to spruce, comparisons of mean diameters in pure and mixed stands indicated that spruce suffered and pine benefited from their interplanting at this site. Frequency distributions of tree diameters confirmed that spruce tended to be suppressed in mixture and pine dominant. Neighbour analysis revealed that spruce were significantly smaller when adjacent to pine and that this effect was mainly due to the larger size of pines. The increased height of spruce at this site, previously attributed to a nutritional benefit conferred by pine, was probably due to competition for light from an overtopping nurse. Nurse varieties must be carefully selected if they are to promote rather than suppress the growth of crop trees.

Received 6 August 1991.
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