Drought resistance, climate-sensitive growth dynamics, and associated management-relevant phenotype characteristics of Douglas-fir provenances, provision of material & monitoring data to partner projects

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Ulrich Kohnle; Professor Dr. Heinrich Spiecker
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Forstwissenschaften
• Förderung: Förderung von 2010 bis 2013
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 180386707

The main objective of the project is to determine growth sensitivity, elasticity, and resilience of Douglas-fir provenances to climatic alterations, in particular drought events. To differentiate between the impact of site and genetics, samples from experiments will be analyzed, where identical provenances are planted at different sites. Major research scopes are: Investigating the impact of weather on intra-annual growth patterns We will determine how weather variations affect the provenances’ growth. The focus will be on intra-annual variations in wood anatomy and density. A dendrometer study will complement the retrospective analyses to monitor changes in stem hydraulic status and to trace the seasonal timing of growth processes. Fitting genotype- and climate-sensitive growth models for a growth simulation system Retrospective inter-annual growth address long-term trends as well as the effect of distinct climate events on inter-annual growth responses. The goal is to build provenance- and climate-sensitive growth models that can be integrated into a growth simulation system. The assessment of growth responses to drought will be tested and interpreted against the results of the partner projects within the general research concept “adaptation of forest trees to climatic change – diversity of drought responses in Douglas-fir provenances”: P1 (genes), P2 (stable isotopes), and P4 (isoprenoids). A major contribution of our project is to provide the partner projects with research opportunities in the adult stands of the provenance experiments.

• DFG-Verfahren: Sachbeihilfen