Состояние и рост культур кедра сибирского в подзоне южной тайги среднего Урала

The results of studies on the 24-27-year old Siberian pine trees, growing in the south taiga subzone, are submitted in the article. The trials were conducted on the territory of Pochinkovsky experimental plot of Nevyansky (former Bilimbaevsky) forest area, located in the south taiga subzone of the Mid. Urals low mountainous province of the Urals hilly-woods region. It is shown that the cedar trees are not found on the present-day forest areas with 1300-2500 trees/ha of self-thinning, due to this a great number of trees (about 50% of the total number) with the diameter up to 4 cm and height of about 5 m have accumulated on this forest territory. There was observed an apparent decrease of the current trees increment in height in the third decade. The number of trees with minimum height growth rate is 38-61%, medium growth rate from 27 to 47% and those of maximum height growth 6-35% of the trees total amount. It is shown that the traditional improvement cuttings of the 27-30-years cedar trees, purposed to thin the tree rows, may cause curving or breaking in the upper part of tree trunks for most of the trees remaining in the row, that’s why each of the trees having been remained in the row, requires individual approach. The growth of Siberian pine trees on eroded soil with poor fertility for a long time lags behind as compared with trees growing on felling soils. The need to develop cedar plants on recultivated lands by applying special technologies (forest litter in the planting pit etc.) is substantiated.