Peat nutrient status and sustainable wood production on peatlands
Project leader: Seppo Kaunisto, Dr For., Act. prof.
Objectives:
Almost 6 million hectares of peatlands and paludified upland forests
have been drained in Finland since the 1930s. The task of this
project is to estimate the nutritional status of these wetlands
in order to maintain sustainable forest growth. This includes
research on peat nutrient amounts and their availability to trees
in different climatic and peat quality conditions, nutrient metabolism
in trees and research for improving unbalanced nutrient status
by fertilization, site preparation, drainage and silvicultural
measures.
The project deals with the following topics:
- Nutrient stores in different peatlands and the effect of the
peat depth and subsoil quality on peat nutrients.
- Mineralization of nitrogen and phosphorus from different peat
types in different climatic conditions.
- Nutrient cycling and allocation in peatland forest ecosystems.
- Nutrient metabolism in trees especially in conditions of nitrogen
surplus in relation to other nutrients.
- Determination of border values (deficiency/sufficient nutrition)
for different nutrients in foliage of Pinus sylvestris, Picea
abies, Betula pendula and Betula pubescens.
- The suitability of some waste products (wood ash, peat ash
etc.) and the potassium and phosphorus sources of different solubility
for fertilization of different tree species on different peatland
sites.
- The effect of drainage and tree harvesting on tree nutrition.
Scientists, and their specialities:
- Seppo Kaunisto, nutrient stores, nitrogen mineralization, tree
nutrition, fertilization
- Leena Finer, nutrient cycle, fertilization
- Markus Hartman, fertilization
- Riitta Heinonen, statistics
- Jyrki Hytönen, fertilization, energy wood production
- Marjut Karsisto, microbiology
- Mikko Moilanen, nutrient stores, fertilization, tree nutrition
- Timo Penttilä, nutrient stores, fertilization
- Pekka Pietiläinen, nutrient metabolism in trees, fertilization
- Markku Saarinen, tree nutrition
- Tytti Sarjala, tree physiology; polyamines
- Klaus Silfverberg, phosphorus and wood ash fertilization
- Heikki Veijalainen, tree nutrition, fertilization
Experiments:
The research is based on a large network of fertilization and
other experiments in different parts of Finland.
Contact information:
Finnish Forest Research Institute METLA
Parkano Research Station
Kaironiementie 54, FIN-39700 Parkano, Finland
Tel+358-3-44351, fax +358-3-4435200
E-mail: Seppo.Kaunisto@metla.fi
Metla PA - TKil - 8.10.1996