Research

Objectives

• Ecology, growth and yield, and management of south boreal taiga forests and drained peatland forests
• Land use change
• Environmental monitoring

Research and monitoring activities

In the Parkano region, thousands of hectares of initially treeless bogs were drained for agriculture in the early 20th century. Later, the bulk of these were abandoned from agriculture and some of the areas were assigned to Metla for studying the applicability of abandoned organic farmland for production forestry. Land-use change has also been the over-all subject of large field experiments on the drainage and afforestation of sites of pristine peatland and cut-away peat extraction areas. Lately, the impact of afforestation on the carbon budgets of these sites has been addressed in intensive field monitoring programs. As regards forests on mineral soils, experiments have focused on the methods of regeneration of trees, and on the impacts of various degrees of thinning, biomass and nutrient removals, and fertilization on stand nutrition and growth and yield. Parkano is heavily involved in the Pan-European Forest Condition Monitoring Programme. Long-term monitoring also involves dynamics of natural boreal forests, phenology and seed crops of forest trees, and the crops of forest berries and mushrooms.

Landscape approaches

The forests outside experiments are managed by applying a variety of different management regimes. Landscape approaches are supported by a GIS-database of up-to-date site and stand parameters, resultant of consecutive inventories of all compartments. Access to these data is available by an intranet-GIS-application.

Documentation & data quality

The history and development of the forests are available from maps and archives. A GIS-database of site and stand parameters of all compartments is kept up to date on an annual basis. Documentation on the location, site and stand characteristics, and the measurements made on the experiments are stored in a database in Metla.

Long-term support & infrastructure

Long-term support for the research facility is well assured due to management according to management plans by Metla, and due to state-owned land. Basic monitorings are financed by Metla or other state research agencies and relevant joint research projects are strongly promoted. Chemical laboratory facilities are available at Metla's Parkano Research Unit and the staff of the unit is available for field assistance.

Key references

• Ahti, E. 1987. Water balance of drained peatlands on the basis of water table simulation during the snowless period. Communicationes Instituti Forestalis Fenniae 141: 1-64.
• Aro, L. & Kaunisto, S. 2003. Effect of refertilisation and growing density on the nutrition, growth and root development of young Scots pine stands in a peat cutaway area with deep peat layers. Suo - Mires and Peat 54(2): 49-68.
• Jokela, A., Sarjala, T., Kaunisto, S. & Huttunen, S. 1997. Effects of foliar potassium concentration on morphology, ultrastructure and polyamine concentrations of Scots pine needles. Tree Physiology 17(11): 677-685.
• Kaunisto, S. 1982. Development of pine plantations on drained bogs as affected by some peat properties, fertilization, soil preparation, and liming. Communicationes Instituti Forestalis Fenniae 109: 1-56.
• Kaunisto, S., Aro, L. & Rantavaara, A. 2002. Effect of fertilisation on the potassium and radiocaesium distribution in tree stands (Pinus sylvestris L.) and peat on a pine mire. Environmental Pollution 117: 111-119.
• Luyssaert, S., Mertens, J. & Raitio, H. 2003. Support, shape and number of replicate samples for tree foliage analysis. Journal of Environmental Monitoring 5: 500-504.
• Paavilainen, E. 1966. On the effect of drainage on root systems of Scots pine on peat soils [In Finnish with English summary]. Comm. Inst. For. Fenn. 61(1): 1-110.
• Saarinen, M. 2002. Effect of vegetation and site preparation on the restocking of Scots pine and birch in dwarf-schrub and Vaccinium vitis-idaea type peatland forests [In Finnish with English summary]. Suo - Mires and Peat 53(2): 41-60.
• Sarjala, T., Taulavuori, K., Savonen, E.-M. & Edfast, A.-B. 1997. Does availability of potassium affect cold hardening of Scots pine through polyamine metabolism? Physiologia Plantarum 99(1): 56-62.
• Turtola, S., Manninen, A.-M., Holopainen, J.K., Levula, T., Raitio, H. & Kainulainen, P. 2002. Secondary metabolite concentrations and terpene emissions of Scots pine xylem after long-term forest fertilization. Journal of Environmental Quality 31(5): 1694-1701.