ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1548842
Research on the secondary branch sizes within crown and primary branch for planted Korean pine in Northeast China
Provisionally accepted
- College of Forestry, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, China
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Branch structure is the fundamental component of an individual tree crown and has an important effect on the tree growth and the wood quality. A number of studies have focused on the primary branch attributes, but only few research has been conducted on secondary branch sizes distribution and models. In order to analyse the secondary branch structure, we selected 54 Korean pine sample trees from Northeast China and measured a total of 24,053 secondary branches on 717 primary branches. The length and diameter for all the secondary branches and the current year shoot of the secondary branch distribution was quantified. The allometric relationship between the length and diameter for the primary branch and the secondary branch with the same age, and the scaling factor variation within the tree crown were quantified. The nonlinear mixed effects secondary branch diameter and length model was finally developed. The results indicated that the secondary branches showed an increase in length and diameter, then a decline as they reached deeper into the base of the primary branch. Secondary branch structure varies slightly among trees of varying ages and sizes. The Roeecp function was selected as the basic model to explore the relationship between different variables and the length and diameter of secondary branches. Absolute distance from tree tip to primary branch base and diameter of primary branch significantly impacted the branch model, while the individual tree variables and competitive variables had minimal influence on the model. Ultimately, we developed two-level nonlinear mixed-effects models incorporating branch variables for secondary branch length and diameter.
Keywords: secondary branch model1, secondary branch length2, secondary branch diameter3, mixed-effects model4, secondary branch distribution pattern5
Received: 20 Dec 2024; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Gao, Zou, Hu and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Huilin Gao, College of Forestry, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, China
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