Quantifying above- and below-ground growth responses of the western Australian oil mallee, Eucalyptus kochii subsp. plenissima, to contrasting decapitation regimes.

ABSTRACT: Resprouting in the oil mallee, Eucalyptus kochii Maiden & Blakely subsp. plenissima Gardner (Brooker), involves generation of new shoots from preformed meristematic foci on the lignotuber. Numbers of such foci escalated from 200 per lignotuber in trees aged 1 year to 3,000 on 4- to 5-year-old trees. Removal of shoot biomass by decapitation 5 cm above ground in summer (February) or spring (October) resulted in initiation of 140-170 new shoots, but approx. 400 shoots were induced to form if crops of new shoots were successively removed until sprouting ceased and rootstocks senesced. Initially, the new shoot biomass of regenerating coppices increased slowly and the root biomass failed to increase appreciably until 1.7-2.5 years after cutting. Newly cut trees showed loss of fine root biomass,

SUBMITTER: Wildy DT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4240411 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature