Figure 5 . — Doicg las- fir 

 stump 1 year after a 

 Christmas tree was 

 harvested from the 

 top portion. The 

 branch on the left 

 has already turned 

 up and all but five 

 vigorous branches 

 in the lower whorls 

 have been removed 

 to give the turnup 

 room to develop into 

 another Christmas 

 tree . 



The lack of Christmas trees produced from shoots on the Lolo site was due primarily 

 to the severe competition branch turnups offered the shoots on this area. In addition, 

 those shoots that did not have turnup competition grew too fast for satisfactory 

 Christmas tree development. 



Year of treatment had no apparent effect on the sizes of trees produced from either 

 turnups or shoots. The data are somewhat erratic, but the distribution in the different 

 size classes was similar from year to year (table 2). * 



Branch turnups produced large trees rapidly (fig. 5) . Over a third of the merchant- 

 able trees produced from turnups^ were in the 10- and 12-foot classes (table 2). Trees 

 from adventitious shoots were smaller than those from turnups. Nearly three-fourths of 

 the shoot trees were in the 2- and 4-foot classes. 



Nearly three- fourths of the stumps produced at least one adventitious shoot--the 

 average was 3^ per stump. Stump treatments delayed the longest produced the most shoots, 

 ranging from a low of 46 percent of the stumps treated in the first year to a high of 90 

 percent of those treated 3 years later (table 3) . This apparently reflected the extra 

 vigor in stumps that still had their full branch complement. Trees in most of the areas 

 responded similarly except for those in the Eureka area where less than half as many of 

 the stumps produced shoots. 



Excessive growth, particularly on the Greenough, Plains, and Lolo plots, caused 

 many of the shoot and turnup trees to be classed as culls. Insufficient development, 

 crowding of shoots by turnups, competition from adjacent trees, lack of symmetry, and 

 needle blight accounted for most of the other culls. 



Basal Pruning 



All of the pruning treatments significantly (t-test, 1 percent confidence level) 

 reduced height and diameter growth for at least the first 5 years after pruning and 

 three of the five treatments reduced such growth during the 5- to 10-year period 

 (table 4) . Height growth reduction was directly proportional to the amount of live 

 crown removed. 



7 



