Treatment of Scots pine seeds by biological preparations as a way of improving the planting material quality in forest nurseries of Krasnoyarsk Krai

Abstract

The effectiveness of treating Scots pine Pinus sylvestris L. seeds by biological preparations based on Trichoderma Pers. fungi to improve the quality of the seedlings was tested in small-plot experiments and by sowing on the industrial scale in two forest nurseries of Krasnoyarsk Krai. It was found that in the small-plot experiments, the treatment of pine seeds with biological preparations improved the safety of seedlings by 12.3 times (T. harzianum) and 16.4 times (T. lignorum (Tode) Harz + T. harzianum) as compared to the control. All the treatment options improved morphometric parameters of the seedlings to varying degrees. Sowing on the industrial scale in two forest nurseries of the Kazachinsky Forestry District also showed a positive effect of the influence of biological products in improving the quality of planting material. The application of the «Bunker» preparation before the storage of the Scots pine seeds in snow in the forest nursery near the village of Mokrushinskoe reduced the effectiveness of the biological preparations in the first year of research. The number of seedlings at the end of the growing season in the experimental and control variants did not differ significantly. In the second year of observations in the experimental variant two-year-old seedlings were characterized by the significant increase in their sizes (by 13 %), branching and length of the root system (by 30 %) as compared to the control. In the nursery near the Vodorezovo village, where fungicides were not used, the positive effect of the biological preparations on the morphometric parameters of one-year seedlings was evident already in the first year. The experimental seedlings had stronger trunks and developed root systems, including a greater total root length as compared to the control. Microbiological studies of the forest nursery soils in 2019–2020 showed that the number of Trichoderma fungi, introduced together with the pine seeds, remained quite high throughout the growing season in the experimental plot soil. The developed biological preparations based on native strains of Trichoderma fungi can be recommended for the application in artificial reforestation in order to improve the quality of forest planting material.

Keywords

• pinus sylvestris l.
• trichoderma fungi
• pre-sowing seed treatment
• biological preparations
• soil seed germination
• seedling safety
• morphometric parameters of seedlings
• central siberia