GROWTH PERFORMANCES IN PLANTING AND SEEDING AREAS OF TAURUS

. Averages of seedling height, diameter at base, height increment of last growth period were higher in planting than seeding. For instance, averages of seedling height were 150.4 cm in planting, and 81.6 cm in seeding. Beside, number of seedling was higher in planting (1767/ha) than seeding (1300/ha) at measurement period. Significant differences were found among sampled areas within planting and seeding areas, and between planting and seeding areas for the characteristics. Positive and significant ( p<0.05 ) relations were found between the pairs of seedling height, diameter at base and height increment in both areas. Planting could be preferred to seeding in suitable sites in forestry practices.


INTRODUCTION
According to inventory of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, there were 3.9 billion ha forest area in whole world, while an average of 4 million ha forest were disposed per year between 1990 and 2015 (FAO, 2015). Its wide distribution and global importance are getting highlights the protection of present forests and conversion of degraded areas. However, many environmental and biological factors such as climate, edaphic, geographic, afforestation method and species could be effective in the protection and conversion. Afforestation method and species can be intervened factors by forestry practices in these factors. These methods have advantages and disadvantages over each other. For instance, seeding can be performed for the species which has abundant and cheap seed.
In the study, afforestation methods are compared based on Taurus cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich) which has limited studies. The species is classified as one of the economically important tree species for Turkish forestry and the "National Tree Breeding and Seed Production Programme" (Koski and Antola, 1993) because of its valuable wood properties such as light, soft, highly durable, special colour, smell and of being easily processed by hand and machine tools (Bozkurt et al., 1990), and large natural distribution, and high adaptation ability to different environmental conditions (i.e. potential tree species to resistance climate change). However, 48% (235229 ha) of forest of the species is unproductive (Anonymous, 2020) similar to general Turkish forest area. But together with its mixed stands, extremely degraded stands, and bare karstic lands occurred after degradation of Taurus cedar, range of this species covers an area of over 600 000 ha in Turkey (Saatcioglu, 1976;Boydak and Calikoglu, 2008). Forest establishment including afforestation, reforestation, artificial regeneration, rehabilitation and private plantation are the most important way in conversion of unproductive forest and potential area to productive (Bilir and Gulcu, 2015). Afforestation by planting and seeding is a fundamental tool for the establishment of new forests on barren landscapes and restoration of degraded forests ecosystems (Caliskan and Boydak, 2017). For instance, 85 899 ha reforestation was established by broadcast seeding method on bare karstic lands resulted from the destruction of Taurus cedar between 1984 and 2006 (Boydak and Calikoglu, 2008). About half a million seedling was produced for Turkish reforestation of the species in last decade (Anonymous, 2020). Beside, Taurus cedar have also planted in other countries for commercial forestry purposes such as in Italy (Fusaro, 1990), in Bulgaria (Tsanov et al., 1990), in Argentina (Ottone and Carloni, 1990). However, limited study was carried out to examine on the success of planting and seeding methods (e.g., Boydak and Ayhan, 1990;Boydak, 2003;Ayan et al., 2017;Ozel et al., 2018) in Taurus cedar. Besides, growth performances of the Taurus cedar in the planting and seeding areas have not been compared to select better reforestation method, yet. Therefore, in this study, growth performances in the planting and seeding sites were compared in order to contribute the present and future practices in forest establishment of the species.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Planting and seeding sites were sampled from sixth-year afforestation established by seeds of seed stand (3631'43'' N latitude, 3246'50'' E longitude, 1750 m altitude) of the species at southern part of Turkey (Table 1, Figure 1). Data of seedling height (H), diameter at base (D o ) and height increment of last growth period (HI) was collected from three planting (P) and three seeding (S) areas which each of them was 300 m 2 . The data was collected from sixth-year afforestation to minimize planting and seeding shock of first years. The planting areas were established by 3x1.5 m spacing and two-year containerized seedlings, while seeding areas were established by sowing 13 kg pure seeds/ha by routine governmental practices such as soil treatment, tending, dilution, reseeding/planting in first three years. There could be many biological and other environmental factors on success performances of forest establishment. The sampled areas were selected from limited afforestation area of the species to minimize effect of these factors (i.e., similar soil characteristics, temperature, rainfall) based on the purpose of the comparison of afforestation methods in the study. Average slope and soil texture across the sampled areas was 15% and sandy loam at calcareous bedrock. Monthly climatic data of the area for last decade was given in Table 2    The sampled area was classified by Erinc's Precipitation effectiveness index (Im) which was used widely in estimation of climate type (Erinc, 1965) as: Im= P/Tom (1) Where, P was the annual total precipitation (mm) and Tom was the annual average maximum temperature (°C).
The sampled area was semi-arid according to Precipitation effectiveness index (Im=17.6).
The sampled areas of planting and seeding were compared for the growth characteristics by following model of multiple analyses of variance (MANOVA) using SPSS (SPSS, 2011).
Where Y ijk is the observation from the k th seedling of i th sampled area of j th method (planting or seeding), μ is overall mean, P i is the effect of the i th sampled area, S j is the effect of j th method, P(S) i(j) is the effect of interaction between method and sampled area, e ijk is random error. Sampled areas were grouped by Duncan's multiple range test (Duncan, 1955). Relation among the characteristics was estimated by Pearson' correlation at SPSS (SPSS, 2011).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Characteristics
Planting showed higher growth performances than seeding for the seedling height, diameter at base and height increment of last growth period (Table 3). Averages of height, diameter at base, and height increment of last growth period were 150.4 cm, 38.6 cm and 35.5 cm in planting site, and 81.6 cm, 26.2 cm and 21.7 cm in seeding site, respectively. Averages of height were 43 cm at three years, 116 cm at six years, and 201 cm at nine years in a planting site originated from seed stand of the species (Bilir, 2004). Averages of height and root-collar diameter of three-year seedling were 20.8 cm and 4.1 mm in the species (Demirci and Bilir, 2001). Averages of height and diameter at base were found 498 cm, 724 cm and 313 cm, and 15.2 cm, 19.3 cm and 7.1 cm in three planting sites which were 12, 12 and 10 years in the species, respectively .
Annual height growths were 25.1 cm at planting and 13.6 cm in seedling areas in the present study while it was found 41.5 cm, 60.3 cm and 31.3 cm in three planting areas by Bilir et al. (2018), and 22.6 cm by Ozel et al. (2018). It showed that annual height growth was lower in seeding than planting in the present and early studies. However, there could be many environmental (e.g., preparing of site, spacing, climatic, edaphic) and biological (e.g., provenance, species) effects in success and growth performance of forest establishment (Yazici and Turan, 2016;Ayan et al., 2017;Yazici, 2018). Boydak (1996) reported that the species increased the growth performance fast after five or six years in natural stands of the species. There were also large differences among sampled areas within planting and seeding and between planting and seeding areas for the characteristics. Averages of height varied between 74.5 cm (S2) and 170.6 cm (P3). Average of height increment of last growth period was three times higher in P3 (38.9 cm) than S2 (13 cm) ( Table 3). The differences were also supported by the results of analysis of variance showing significant (p≤0.05) differences among sampled areas and between planting and seeding. Planting showed 84.3% higher height performance than seeding. It was 27.7% at planting areas (P2 and P3), and 19.3% at seeding areas (S2 and S3) for height (Table 3). Beside method x area interactions were found to be significant (p≤0.05) for the characteristics. Similar results were also reported among planting sites of the species Ozel et al., 2018). Planting areas had larger variation than seeding sites for H and HI based on standard deviation. And also, sampled areas were more homogenous for H than D and HI based on results of Duncan's multiple range test (Duncan, 1955) (Table  3). Beside, number of seedling was higher in planting (1767 seedlings/ha) than seeding (1300 seedlings/ha) at measurement period. Numbers of seedling were reported 6000 /ha on sunny slopes and 14000/ha on shady slopes at reforestation areas established by seeding of the species at the end of fifth vegetation period (Boydak and Calikoglu, 2008). The results emphasized that importance of afforestation method, and local forestry practices.

Relations between the pairs of characteristics
Positive and significant (p<0.05) relations were found between the pairs of seedling height, diameter at base and height increment in all sampled areas (Table  4). Relation between height and diameter at base was also shown for the areas of planting and seeding in Figure 2. Similar relations between height and diameter were also reported by Bilir (1997 and2004), Yazici (2018), Ozel et al. (2018), and Bilir et al. (2018) in the species.

CONCLUSIONS
Results of the study showed that planting could be preferred to establish fast stand to seeding. Differences of growth performances among sampled areas within areas emphasized importance of local forestry practices.
Significant relations between the pairs of characteristics could be used in future studies, and forestry practices such as forest tending and comprehensive determination of stand performance. Future performances of these areas or different study areas could be investigated for the more accurate conclusions.