Bessonne

The trees were planted in 2008 on public land in Bessonne ZEC after total harvest, close to La Tuque, a town to the north of Quebec city, eastern Canada, in transition biome from temperate to boreal forests. The planted species were hybrid larch and white spruce. This plantation has two principal goals: to determine if mixed plantations have higher wood productivity compared to monocultures and to serve as an operational-scale demonstration of mixed plantation for the forestry industry.

This trial is linked to the IDENT experiment.

Design

Bessonne’s trial has three treatments, which are repeated over three blocks. The first two are monocultures of hybrid larch and white spruce. The last one is a mixed plantation where two rows of hybrid larch alternate with three rows of white spruce.

Site characteristics

	Bessonne (La Tuque)
Country	Canada
Biome	transition temperate to boreal
Latitude	47.38
Longitude	-72.52
Soil type	Cambisols and Cambisol derivatives, interfered by Regosols on ridges and crests
Former land use	forestry
Altitude	500 m
Design	stem-wise regular, patch wise planting
Plot shape	irregular
Plot size (m^2)	10700 m²
Plant distance (m)	spruce 2; larch 2 (in rows) 3 (between)
Number of trees planted	17 000
Planting date	2008
Diversity variables	species richness
Diversity gradient	1, 2 species
Size species pool	2
Species pool	Larix x mar schlinsii Coaz. Picea glauca
Contact person	Alain Paquette
Email	paquette.alain@uqam.ca

Research

Instead of planting one species and increasing the homogeneity of the land, this plantation has two main species and is more heterogenous.

Management

The plantation is large, at operational scale for the forestry industry to evaluate the challenges at the operational and organisational levels. Thus, those challenges and needs could be identified from planting to harvest and tools could be developed for future mixed plantations.

Extra information

Contact info

For extra information you can send an e-mail to the contact person.