Joint Fertiliser Experiment on Beinn Eighe Reserve

Date Added: 01 September 2023 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1963 Picture No: 5695

This map image was part of a collection passed to Forestry Memories from a storage shed in Newton Nursery used by Forest Research.

Unusual species mixture of Scots pine and alder with some pure Scots pine plots and others that seem to be blank. The letters M, H, S and P one assumes may refer to different fertiliser treatments.

Any suggestions?

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1 Comment

Maybe the thought was for the Alder (Alnus glutinosa) to enhance available nitrogen (N) for the establishment of SP (Pinus sylvestris) in wet, peaty soils. Whilst alder will establish on unflushed peaty soils, it tends to become moribund between 10 to 15 years after planting and eventually die.

As for the possible abbreviated treatment annotations, H, M, P and S? Having tried to make some link with fertiliser treatments of the time, the annotations appear very obscure. In 1954, FC Bulletin No.22 Experiments in Tree Planting on Peat, Zehetmayr, is comprehensive in his summary of the experiments up to that time and many of the questions on cultivation, fertilisation and species choice had largely been answered. These abbreviated annotations are not used in this publication, at all. The setting up of a joint experiment that doesn't use a common abbreviated nomenclature and without a key being written on the map appears odd, but not untypical of the period.

If indeed they are fertiliser treatments, I suggest the following:
H = high mineral phosphate application (rate?)
M = medium mineral phosphate application (rate?)
P = low mineral phosphate application (rate?)
S = basic slag application (rate?)

Alternatively, they could be related to the cultivation treatment into which the trees were planted, with the fertilisation reliant on the alder planted in mixture and possibly mineral phosphate universally applied.

H = hand planted directly into the ground
M = mounded planting sites
P = ploughed planting sites
S = screefed planting sites

Maybe Bill Mason can "dig out" the original experiment plan from the digitised files, or else it will remain a mystery, only known to the "big bonfire"!

Good health, Bill Rayner
Comment left on 02 September 2023 at 00:13 by Bill Rayner

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