TEAK SECOND ROTATION ESTABLISHMENT EXPERIMENT IN DRY ZONE OF SRI LANKA

Abstract

Teak (Tectona grandis) is a tree species which grows well in the dry zone of Sri Lanka.During 1960s and 70s nearly 40,000 hectares have been planted with this species ascommercial plantations in nutrients rich burnt soil in the low country intermediate and dryzone areas. Most of the established plantations are now in a stage to do the final felling.The micro environmental conditions of the plantations has changed due to differentenvironmental changes such as frequent fire, nutrient removal by harvesting etc. Thereforethe second rotation establishment of the same species seem to be a problem.

A field experiment on the second rotation establishment was carried out at Timbolkettiya,Embilipitiya in 1995. Two different propagule types, three different land preparationmethods and four different fertilizer applications were applied in a split split plot design.

The propagule type potted stumps (p> 0.05) were far superior to the normal bare rootedstumps in terms of survival percentage and plant's initial growth after the second monsoonrains. In general deep soil loosening (45 em hole) had the highest survival (81 %) and thefastest plant growth (95 ern) compared to the standard 30 em hole (58% survival and 72cm height). A significant difference (p > 0.05) was not observed between differentinorganic fertilizer levels. This could have been due to the adverse environmentalconditions which prevailed during the experimental period. The survival for potted plantswas 86% while it was only 42% for bare rooted stumps. Further, the potted plants reached95 cm height compared to 72 em for stumps.