This study was conducted to reveal the effects of local climatic conditions on the vegetative growth in a mature stand of Korean white pine based on climatic estimates. For this, the annual increments of stand variables such as DBH, height, basal area...
This study was conducted to reveal the effects of local climatic conditions on the vegetative growth in a mature stand of Korean white pine based on climatic estimates. For this, the annual increments of stand variables such as DBH, height, basal area and volume were measured and estimated for seven years from 1974 to 1980. The local climatic conditions in the study site were also estimated by both a topoclimatological method and a spatial statistical technique. The local climatic conditions were then correlated with and regressed on the growth factors to reveal the relationships between the climatic estimates and the growth. It is found that relatively high temperatures had positive effects on the diameter growth. The yearly diameter growth increased when each of mean, maximum, and minimum temperature during the growing season was high. Height growth showed positively significant correlation with three climatic variables. The most important variable influencing height growth was the average of maximum temperature for 10 months from January to October. It means that the higher the average of maximum temperature for 10 months from January to October is, the more height growth of Korean white pine increases. Other climatic variables related to height growth were average of minimum temperature for 3 months in the early growing season and mean relative humidity for the growing season. Six climatic variables related to temperature had effects on basal area increment and all of them were positively correlated with basal area increment. Especially, temperatures from January to March were important factors affecting the basal area increment. In volume increment, high correlation was also recognized with most of temperature variables. This tendency was the same as the results in diameter and hight increments. This means that the volume growth increases when temperatures during the growing season are relatively high.