Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-26T17:42:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2017-12-01 Anglo American Arauco Arborgen ArcelorMittal Cenibra CMPC Comigo Copener Duratex Eldorado Fazenda Campo Born Fibria Florestal Itaquari Forestal Oriental Gerdau GMR International Paper Jari Klabin Lwarcel Montes del Plata Plantar Rigesa Suzano Vallourec Veracel University of Sao Paulo - Brazil Sao Paulo State University - Brazil Federal University of Lavras - Brazil Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte - Brazil Colorado State University - USA North Carolina State University - USA USDA Forest Service Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Intensively managed plantations account for 1.5% of the world's forests, but they meet one-third of the demand for wood products. Eucalyptus plantations are among the most productive, with rates of growth depending heavily on genetics, silviculture, and climate. The TECHS Project examines productivity at 36 locations across a 3500 km gradient from Brazil to Uruguay, testing the interacting influences of genetics, temperature and precipitation on stemwood production. Across all sites and genotypes, stemwood production in the middle of the 6 year rotation (the peak period of growth) averaged 22 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1). Production varied by fivefold across sites, and by about 2-fold among genotypes within each site. The best clones at each location grew 1.5-4 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1) more than the average for all clones, underscoring the importance of matching genotypes to local site conditions. Contrary to patterns for natural forests across geographic gradients, Eucalyptus production declined with increasing temperature, dropping by 2.5 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1) for a 1 degrees C temperature increase. The temperature effect was likely driven in part by the geographic covariance of temperature and rainfall, as rainfall tended to decline by 78 mm yr(-1) for each 1 degrees C increase in temperature. Stemwood production increased an average of 1.5 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1) for each 100 mm yr(-1) increase in precipitation, but when the covariation of temperature and precipitation were included the apparent influence of precipitation declined to 0.4 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1) for each 100 mm yr(-1) increase in precipitation. Future results will determine if within-site reductions in ambient rainfall have the same apparent influences as the rainfall pattern across the geographic gradient, as well as quantifying the importance of insects and pests in affecting growth. The supply of wood from intensively managed plantations will be strongly influenced by both temperature and precipitation at plantation locations, and with changing climates. No Arizona Univ, Sch Forestry, Flagstaff, AZ 86011 USA Swedish Univ Agr Sci, Dept Forest Ecol & Management, SE-90183 Umea, Sweden Fed Univ Santa Catarina UFSC, BR-89520000 Curitibanos, SC, Brazil Inst Pesquisas & Estudos Florestais, Via Comendador Pedro Morganti,3500 Bairro Monte A, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil Univ Sao Paulo, Dept Forest Sci, BR-13400 Piracicaba, SP, Brazil Sao Paulo State Univ, Dept Forest Sci, BR-18600 Botucatu, SP, Brazil Sao Paulo State Univ, Dept Forest Sci, BR-18600 Botucatu, SP, Brazil