%0 Research Notes %T Effect of vegetation and site preparation on the restocking of Scots pine and birch in dwarf-schrub and Vaccinium vitis-idaea type peatland forests %A Saarinen, Markku %D 2002 %J Suo - Mires and peat %V 53 %N 2 %U http://suo.fi/article/9820 %X The study deals with the natural regeneration of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and birch (Betula pendula & B. pubescens) on ten experimental fields on peatland sites drained for forestry, mainly during the 1930s. The principal goal of the study was to investigate the effect of different types of natural ground vegetation on the restocking of pine and birch following site preparation (rotavation and mounding) on old drainage areas. Rotavation, which corresponds to disc trenching on upland forest soils, is capable of producing fully-stocked pine stands. The effect of surface treatments such as rotavation depends, however, on the predominant ground vegetation. Sphagnum moss patches are often well restocked even when not prepared, which means that site preparation often only has an effect on transformed Pleurozium and Dicranum vegetation. The success of rotavation has also encouraged forest owners to use other alternative methods of surface treatment such as mounding. The tree seedlings tend to be concentrated on the surface of the furrows produced by rotavation, which means that restricting digger-scarification to the topmost surface of the soil on well-drained regeneration sites can produce the same result; the required machinery is usually already present at the site for ditch network maintenance.