Acta Scientiarum Polonorum
Silvarum Colendarum Ratio et Industria Lignaria

The choice of the container for plant production is a very important component. The density of plants in the nursery during growth is a crucial factor in the growth of seedlings. The aim of the work is the comparison of the influence of the density of seedlings in a container on the growth of one-year plants of common beech and pedunculate oak. Two experiments were executed: I. Every second seedling was removed from the HIKO V265 cassettes on two dates: at the beginning of July and at the beginning of August. II. The growth of the seedlings in cassettes HIKO V265 and HIKO V250 was compared. The tests were executed at the Nursery Farm in Nędza, Rudy Raciborskie Forest District (RDLP Katowice). The cassettes, of external dimensions 35×21 cm differ in their number of seedlings per 1 m2. HIKO V250 has 18 compartments the volume of 250 cm3, HIKO V265 has 28 compartments the volume of 265 cm3. In each experiment the root collar diameter and growth of the seedlings were measured at the end of the vegetation season. Experiment I. Beech seedlings differed considerably in height. The smallest height characterised the seedlings the density of which was low- ered at the beginning of July. The date of the procedure did not influence the root collar diameter. For the oak seedlings the time of the lowering of density was shown not to have influence on the height of the seedlings. The oak seedlings the density of which were lowered in July were characterised by the biggest root collar diameter. Experiment II. The beech seedlings produced in HIKO V250 and HIKO V265 differed consider- ably in their root collar diameter in favour of HIKO V250. Differences in height between the beech seedlings produced in different types of containers were not noted. The average height and the root collar diameter of the pedunculate oak were considerably bigger in HIKO V250 cassettes than in HIKO V265 cassettes. In light of the above experiments the HIKO V250 cassettes, characterised by a smaller density of seedlings, seem to be more advantageous for the production of oak. If there are no cassettes of small density available, every second seedling can be taken out, but not later than at the beginning of July.