Species selection

[FrederikBaumgarten]

Remaining plants from PhaenoFlex:

• pinus contorta: 51
• pinus strobus: 180
• sequoiadendron giganteum: 170
• sequoia sempervirens: 80
• acer negundo: 180
• populus basamifera ssp. trichocarpa: 90
  • -> be aware that roots might be more developed than shoots!

[FrederikBaumgarten]

Talking to Lizzie we ended up with some species that would be nice to have: Quercus, Populus, Acer, Betula,

[christophe-rd]

After meeting with @FrederikBaumgarten today, we decided on the following

Species that we already have:

• Pinus strobus
• Acer negundo
• Populus basamifera ssp. trichocarpa

Species we definitely want to get:

• Quercus rubra
• Betula papyrifera

Species that could be cool to add to the experiment

• Douglas fir (or whatever evergreen species) -- mostly for a nutrient boost
• Alnus rubra -- also for nutrient boost (@FrederikBaumgarten's suggestion because since they fix nitrogen, they might not assimilate nutrients the same way as the other trees do.
• Sequoias -- we still have plenty of replicates of two species.
• Fagus grandifolia

Fredi and I thought aiming for 10 species and potentially getting 8 would be a good plan. 90 replicates/species.

[lizzieinvancouver]

@christophe-rd Looks fine to me, especially have 8-10 spp, though it would be good to have a budget before we finalize just to make sure we can afford. Also -- how many replicates per species per treatment? I advocate 10-12 if possible ...

I like Alnus rubra as it's common across so much of North America and we have lots of phenological data on it. Ditto for Fagus grandifolia (I am personally more interested to focus on angiosperms and skip any gymnosperms, but will trust you and @FrederikBaumgarten about this).... we also have lots of data on other Acer spp. if you decide against negundo or cannot get it. Deirdre has a list of all the species we have studied in the lab for phenology .. and also a lot of basic trait data.

[christophe-rd]

@lizzieinvancouver @FrederikBaumgarten

Follow up with the tree ordering.
I talked to Fredi on Monday to discuss the tree ordering. I reached roughly 40 nurseries in BC and Alberta, none have Red Oak or American Beech in stock. Therefore, I requested two quotes from the nurseries with the most species we were initially interested in. Both Greenflow and Peels (the one that delivered great quality trees for Phaenoflex) have the 5 species available that we want to order (see the list below in bold).

Here are the quotes: quote_peels.pdf quote_greenflow.pdf

As the prices are very similar, I suggest we go for Peels since they have great service and quality trees for Phaenoflex. What do you think? Neetu from Peels even told me he could deliver the trees on Thursday next week if he receives the payment!

Can we afford 5 species with 90 replicates? If yes, this would leave us with the following:

Gymnosperms

• Sequoiadendron giganteum (Phaenoflex leftovers)
• Pinus strobus (Phaenoflex leftovers)
• Pseudotsuga menziesii

  Angiosperms

• Betula Papyfera
• Quercus macrocarpa
• Alnus Rubra
• Prunus virgiana
• Acer negundo (Phaenoflex leftovers)
• Populus basamifera ssp. trichocarpa (Phaenoflex leftovers)

[FrederikBaumgarten]

@lizzieinvancouver : We know that you are mainly interested in the angiosperms, but here is why we think it is good to even include douglas fir:

• It is likely that we will find a difference between evergreen and deciduous species since evergreen can continue photosynthesizing during the growing season extensions. Also likely that there is a difference in nutrient uptake between those two groups.
• We already have two angiosperms anyway waiting to be treated
• Douglas fir is the most common species in BC, important for timber and worldwide an increasingly planted species in forestry. Hence the inclusion of this species could broaden the impact of this study.

[lizzieinvancouver]

@christophe-rd I think we can afford this, but can you please confirm with them there cannot provide any discount available for research work at UBC (especially for this large order)? It's always worth asking as this is quite a large chunk of costs, and we're not average users. I will email you a little more info about billing.

I am fine with three gymnosperms and the species, but I suggest you double check if you cannot get any other Fagus or Quercus species. Betula, Alnus, Prunus, Populus are all pretty fast, short-lived species so dropping one (Alnus? Despite what I said before) for a more 'conservative strategy' species would be better in my opinion, but I understand if not possible. You have my approval to order what you and @FrederikBaumgarten think best.

[christophe-rd]

@lizzieinvancouver @FrederikBaumgarten Thanks for your answer! I checked for longer-lived species. Fredi mentioned he'd rather not get two species from the same genus. Could we select two species from the same genus but that have different strategies? E.g. Acer negundo (we already have) and Acer macrophyllum.

Maple leaf nursery have Red oak, White Oak and different species of beech. However, they are almost 3x more expensive than Greenflow and Peel's. Plus, would it be better to order all the trees from the same nursery?

We could probably get Garry Oak. However, that would mean two Oaks with similar strategies. Would that be ok?

As it's the end of the season for the nurseries, they have very limited stocks. This is probably why we end up with few choices... Another thing we could explore is ordering 1 or 2 species in the US. Let me know what you think about that!

Perfect for billing. I also asked for a possible discount.

[lizzieinvancouver]

@christophe-rd I don't personally see an issue with two species of one genus, as long as they do not overlap strongly in their ranges (or too strongly in their strategies), but I know you and @FrederikBaumgarten have thought a lot about this, so I am okay with the one species per genus plan.

It is better to get all plants from one nursery, if we can get the species we want ... if we cannot get the species we want from one nursery then I think perhaps getting 1-2 species somewhere else is okay.

You cannot easily import live plants from the US I believe, but check with @FrederikBaumgarten ....

[FrederikBaumgarten]

Hi there! Still so many questions...:) I agree that one additional late flushing / conservative species would be nice.

However, I have one concern that might reshuffle things and I am sorry that I thought about that only now: I'm in the middle of the harvest for Phaenoflex and some species in the GS extension treatments have pretty much explored the rooting zone of the pots. This is just fine for this experiment, but there is now way in keeping them for another growing season! Repotting is also no option since some species are just too big already. Hence we need smaller saplings. Acer negundo, Sequoia and Pines are fine. slow growing anyway. The poplar I suggest to regrow from new cuttings. That will work perfectly. But any new ordered plants should be really small. Bad thing is that @christophe-rd you have to make a new quote for the requested species. Good thing is that it will be much cheaper, easier to accomodate in the climate chambers and there might be more species available...

If we don't find another species of a different genus, then I am also fine with a pair like acer negunde and acer macrophyllum.

Do you all agree with the smaller plants? I know that they are more opportunistic at younger ages, but that can also be a strength since selection takes places mainly at this life stage.

[christophe-rd]

@FrederikBaumgarten it's no problem! The only two nurseries that seemed fine to me out of the 40 I reached are Peel's and Greenflow. I doubt that scanning through all of them again would be very useful...

I doubt that downsizing will broaden the available species. Could we now afford trees from Maple Leaf? Here are the two species that are both long-lived and the shortest (in height) in their inventory:

• English oak -- 25.50$ (5 foot tall)

• Red oak -- 25$ (5 foot tall)

In my opinion, this isn't worth paying that much money, and Acer macrophyllum is much cheaper. Let me know what you think.

I will contact Neetu tomorrow to see if the species are available in smaller sizes. Right now in the order, they are # 2 pots (2 gallons), we will then downsize to # 1 pots (1 gallon).

Also @lizzieinvancouver I asked her for the discount, it was already applied but she could reduce it by 150$.

[FrederikBaumgarten]

I agree thats still too expensive for the two oak species. Yes 1 gallon is the absolute max!

[lizzieinvancouver]

@christophe-rd @FrederikBaumgarten Thanks for all your work on this! I too agree that is too expensive for two oak species.

How small are the plants you're thinking of? I agree we really do not want pot effects. Another idea @FrederikBaumgarten had mentioned was planting them out after the first year, do we think that is not an option? We'd lose some root biomass in digging them up but maybe not enough to matter.

[FrederikBaumgarten]

Planting them outside will be an incredible pain to dig out, at least for the fast growing species. I doubt that one would be able to do that for alder, big leaved maple and poplar. we will also create strong competition even between species given the space we have. I think trees of 30-50 cm should be fine. They should come in 1 gallon pots, not more. Then we have the potential to quadruple the volume...

[christophe-rd]

@lizzieinvancouver @FrederikBaumgarten Hello to you too! I got news from Neetu. 4 of the 6 species are available in # 1 pots. Two of them are not: Quercus and Douglas fir. Quercus should be fine as it grows slowly. However, I suggest we drop Douglas fir since it will probably get too big by the end of the second growing season.

I asked Neetu to submit a "final" quote with the following species. If you agree, we could proceed with this as soon as I get it. For now, if you want to take a quick look at the quote with douglas fir, you can find them here: PQ-00565 (2).pdf

[FrederikBaumgarten]

@lizzieinvancouver @christophe-rd Here we go. Lots of plants again. They all look great. The size of alnus is quite high and might be tricky in the second year, but we will find out... ![Uploading 20231121_125008.jpg…]()

[christophe-rd]

Fantastic! Thank you so much @FrederikBaumgarten for this. I am very happy about this!

[lizzieinvancouver]

@FrederikBaumgarten Should someone be tasked to check in on these next year after you go?

[christophe-rd]

A little update on the discussion we had @FrederikBaumgarten and I on Tuesday. We will need to repot most of the trees during my week in Vancouver in February. This is what's planned for now:

Evergreen

Sequoia: 1gal --> 2gal Pinus: 1gal --> 2gal

Deciduous

Acer Negundo: 1gal --> 2gal Acer macrophyllum : Add soil in the current pot Quercus: Add soil in the current pot Prunus: 1gal --> 2gal (depending on root expansion) Betula: 1gal --> 2gal Populus: cut segments with 1 to 3 buds and place in moist soil. Alnus: transfer to 2 gal pots/keep roots. Cut so it's much shorter. //we need to think this through. I feel like if we cut it, it might transform into a bushy tree which will be a pain to manipulate. But if we don't cut it, it's already too tall and will be enormous by the end of the growing season.//