relation between till geochemistry and the occurrence ... - Arkisto.gsf.fi

Environmental geochemistry in northern Europe,
Edited by Eelis Pulkkinen.
Geological Survey of Finland, Special Paper 9. 169-175, 1991.
RELATION BETWEEN TILL GEOCHEMISTRY AND
THE OCCURRENCE OF SCLERODERRIS CANKER
IN FINLAND
by
Pertti Hari, Alf Björklund, Hannu Rita and Anneli Ylimartimo
Hari, P., Björklund, A., Rita, H. & Yiimartimo, A., 1991. Relation between
till geochemistry and the occurrence of scleroderris canker in Finland.
Geological Survey o f Finland, Special Paper 9, 169- 175, 3 figures.
Till samples were collected at a density of 1 site/300 km1 for the Geochemical
Atlas of Finland and at a density of 1 siteM km2 for the Geological
Survey of Finland. The < 0.06 mm fraction of composite till sarnples
was leached for 1 h in 7 N aqua regia and analyzed by ICP. A geochemical
index (GEI), formulated as (K + Mg + Ca)-(Al + Fe + Mn), was developed
based on knowledge of the effects of acid deposition and tree nutrition.
The occurrence of scleroderris canker damage caused by the fungus
Ascocalyx abietina (Lagerb.) Schlapfer was studied in the neighborhood
of each sampling point for the Geochemical Atlas of Finland in an area
in southern Finland rneasuring 100 km x 300 km. For each of the 80 studied
stands the sum of the proportion of the recovered, browning, and dead
crowns was calculated and used as a disease index. The 20 stands with the
lowest and 20 stands with the highest GEI values were compared using
the Mann-Whitney U-test. The low GEI group had a higher disease index
mean and the hypothesis of equal means was rejected with the p-value of
3.15 %. The results suggest that the geochemistry of till and the occurrence
of scleroderris canker are related to each other or to some other
related property. The areas susceptible to scleroderris canker in Finland
are predicted using geochemical maps based on the GEI.
Key words: environmental geology, Coniferales, scleroderris canker,
geochemical methods, till, acidification, buffers, Finland
Pertti Hari and Anneli Ylimartimo, Department of Silviculture, University
o f Helsinki, SF-00170 Helsinki, Finlfrnd
A[fBjOrklund, Department of Geology, Abo Akademi, SF-20500 Turku,
Finland
Hannu Rita, Department of Forest Mensuration and Management, University
o f Helsinki, SF-00170 Helsinki, Finland
INTRODUCTION
Scleroderris canker is caused by a microfungus fungus often grows with no serious symptoms in
that attacks coniferous shoots. The pathogen suppressed branches weakened by reduced assimi-
Ascocalyx abietina (Lagerb.) Schlaepfer-Bernhard lation. Now and then the disease has broken out,
and its conidial stage Brunchorstiapinea (Karst.) but the frequency has been recorded very sporadv.Höhn.
are endernic in Finland (Kujala 1950). The ically; consequently it is difficult to judge wheth-

Geological Survey of Finland, Special Paper 9
Pertti Hari, Alf Björklund, Hannu Rita and Anneli Ylimartimo
er there have.been changes in its prevalence during
the first half of this century. The first severe
scleroderris canker damage to Scots pine in Finland
was reported in the 1960's. Since then, an increase
in the damaged area has been observed after
every cold and rainy summer. For instance, in
the Korkeakoski Forest District of the National
Board of Forestry the slightly damaged area has
increased to 6000 hectares during the last fifteen
years (Information. . .). Also Suninen (1989) reports
clear increase in the darnaged area in an experimental
stand during 1978-1988.
These recent observations may indicate an intensified
interaction between trees and fungus, or
they may reflect an increased attention to disease
symptoms. A number of factors such as unfavorable
climatic conditions (cold summers), site factors,
change in forestry practices, and N fertilization
may predispose pine to scleroderris canker
(Donaubauer 1972, Skilling 1972, Kurkela 1984,
Aalto-Kallonen & Kurkela 1985, Kallio et al. 1985,
Pätilä & Uotila 1990). The effect of acid deposition
may also play a role; the recent damage in
Sweden, Norway, and the USA is reported from
areas having a considerable acid load (Barklund
& Rowe 1981, Bragg & Manion 1984, Barklund
1985 and 1989). According to Bragg & Manion
(1984), low soil pH seems to be related to higher
disease rates. Further nitrogen deposition in forests
may increase susceptibility to scleroderris canker
in the same way as fertilizers do.
Important factors governing the acidity and the
amount of exchangeable base cations in Finnish
forest soils are the mineralogy and the grain-size
distribution of the parent glacial till, sand, gravel,
and postglacial marine and lacustrine sediments.
The mineralogy of these is related to the
bedrock geology. The most important long-term
acid neutralization occurs by weathering. The
Finnish bedrock is largely composed of acid intrusive
rocks and gneisses which are high in minerals
resistant to weathering such as quartz and
K-Na feldspars. Therefore, large regions are covered
with overburden in which weathering is insufficient
to compensate for an increasing acid
load.
At high cation exchange capacity and high base
saturation the buffering of the soil solution occurs
through exchange of protons for cations in the exchangeable
sites of soil particles.
It has been found, both theoretically and experimentally,
that the addition of acid to soil
results in the decrease of base saturation (Matzner
1989, Holmberg et al. 1989, Nissinen & Ilvesniemi
1990). The decreasing concentration of base
cations on soil particles is reflected in the availability
of base cations. Nutrient deficiencies caused
by acid deposition have been noticed in Central
Europe (e.g. Zech & Popp 1983, Förster 1990). In
southern Finland the first available results suggest
that over the period 1970 to 1989 the base saturation
and the pH of forest soil layer to a depth of
60 cm have decreased (Westman 1990). Natural
pH (0.025 M NH,NO,) values below 5 in soil
parent materia1 have been reported by Räisänen
(1989). At about pH 4 and lower the protons in
solution exchange for Fe and for Al in Al-hydroxy
interlayered clay minerals (Räisänen 1988, Räisänen
& Jaloniemi 1990). High contents of Al, Fe,
and their compounds, as well as of a number of
heavy metals mobilized at low pH, are toxic to
vegetation.
It is assumed that in areas where the overburden
is low in easily weathered minerals, the supply
of Ca, Mg, and K is insufficient to compensate
for the loss by exchange with protons and subsequent
leaching caused by an increasing acid load.
Further it is assumed that decreased pH in such
areas causes mobilization of toxic amounts of Al,
Fe, and Mn.
The Geological Survey of Finland is carrying out
a large-scale mapping of the geochemistry of the
fine-grained fraction of till (< 0.06 mm; the most
important pool of exchangeable elements). In the
present paper we study the relation between the
geochemistry of till and the occurrence of scleroderris
canker, and indicate the potential of geochemical
maps for prediction of areas susceptible
to this disease.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
An area in southern Finland measuring 100 km
x 300 km (Fig. 1) was chosen to study the relation
between the geochemistry of till and the frequency
of scleroderris canker. Within this area,
composite till samples collected at a density of one
site/300 km2, 80 sites in all, had been analyzed
for the Geochemical Atlas of Finland. Further, in
some parts of the country composite till samples
had been collected at a higher density of one site/4
km2 by the Geological Survey of Finland. The till

Fig. 1. The study area measuring 100 km x 300 km.

Geological Survey of Finland, Special Paper 9
Pertti Hari, Alf Björklund, Hannu Rita and Anneli Ylimartimo
samples are from a depth of 1-2
m, which is well
below the sai1 horizon in this area. After drying,
< 0.06 mm fraction was sieved from the samples
and leached at + 80°C for 1 h in 7N aqua regia.
An extract was analyzed by induction-coupled
plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP).
An index was developed based on knowledge of
the effects of acid deposition on soil properties and
tree nutrition . The values of the variables describing
the concentrations of K, Mg, Ca, Al, Fe, and
Mn were standardized. The first principal component
coefficients of these variables were roughly
equal. This supported the choice of equal weights
in the definition of the index, which we here call
the GEI (Geochemical Environmental Index):
(K + Mg + Ca)-(Al + Fe + Mn). We use this index
to describe the geochemical properties of till.
Unfortunately, there is no systematic inventory
of the area of damage by scleroderris canker in
Finland; the available records are sporadic and
often based on subjective observations. To obtain
a more quantitative picture of the frequency of
scleroderris canker an experimental survey was ar-
ranged in July, 1986, in southern Finland in the
above-mentioned 100 kmx 300 km area. The
method was to involve a quick-survey to estimate
the disease intensity near by the geochemical survey
points. The most severely damaged young pine
stand not more than in the 0.5 km neighborhood
of each geochemical sampling point was chosen.
In each standthe proportion of all trees having 1)
recovered crowns with one or more changes of a
leading shoot, 2) crowns with recent browning of
shoots, and 3) dead crowns was measured. The
sum of the values of these three response variables
was then calculated for each stand to describe the
long-term situation of damage occurrence. We use
this sum as a disease index.
The 80 pine stands surveyed were ranked according
to the value of the GEI, and 20 stands with
the lowest and 20 stands with the highest GEI
values were chosen for the comparison. Owing to
the strong skewness of the distribution of the disease
index these two chosen pine-stand-groups
were compared using the Mann-Whitney U-test.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
It has been normal practice to predict the geochemistry
of glacial overburden on the basis of the
known geology of the bedrock. Accordingly,
predictions of the acidification sensitivity of soil
in an area have been made on the basis of bedrockgeological
maps (Kommitten Miljö 1982, Shilts
1981). Recent geochemical maps over large regions
- e.g. maps of the Nordkalott project (Be~lviken
et al. 1986), maps of the Geochemical Atlas of Finland,
and maps of the Geological Survey of Finland
- show that the areal distribution of the
aqua-regia extractable contents of most elements
correlates with the main bedrock units only to a
limited extent. The reason for the disagreement
and the source of increased contents unrelated to
bedrock geology has not yet been explained. Björklund
(1988a, b), who pointed out this feature, suggests
a relation between past hydrothermal processes,
with related alteration and metal enrichment
in the bedrock, and an increase in the mobile
phases of elements in the overlying glacial drift.
He suggests that deep salt groundwater and
ascending geogas may play an important role in
the transport and enrichment of the mobile phase
of elements in overburden.
The pine stands in the lowest quartile of the GEI
value had a higher disease index mean than the
pine stands in the highest quartile. We used the
Mann-Whitney U-procedure to test the hypothesis
of equal means and were able to reject it with
the p-value of 3.15 %. Areas susceptible to
scleroderris canker can thus be predicted using the
GEI (Figs. 2 and 3). Figure 2 shows a color image
of the moving median (Björklund & Gustavsson,
1987) for GEI based on the data of the Geochemical
Atlas of Finland. The color image of the
moving median of GEI in Fig. 3 is based on the
denser sampling grid of the Geological Survey of
Finland. Because there is no systematic inventory
of the area damaged by scleroderris canker in Finland
the compatibility of the damaged area with
the prediction in the Figs. 2 and 3 cannot be tested.
The disease frequency has been recorded very sporadically
and the records are often based on subjective
observations. A more detailed, long-term
survey of the damage by scleroderris canker in Finland
is needed.
The results of the present study give support to
the hypothesis that till geochemistry and the occurrence
of scleroderris canker are related to each

Geological Survey of Finland, Special Paper 9
Relation between till geochemistry and the occurrence of scleroderris canker in Finland
b
GEOCHEMISTRY OF TILL
-62 pm
+
-
Aqua Regia leach
--i
Fig. 2. The moving median for GEI, (K + Mg + Ca)-(Mn + Fe + Al), based on the data of the Geochemical Atlas
of Finland.

Geological Survey of Finland, Special Paper 9
Pertti Hari, Alf Björklund, Hannu Rita and Anneli Ylimartimo
Fig. 3. The moving median for GEI, (K + Mg + Ca)-(Mn + Fe + AI), based on regional geochemicai data of the OeologicaI Survey of Finland.
other or to some other related property. The GEI
may be interpreted as an estirnate of the acid neutralizing
capacity of till (cf. de Vries & Breeuwsma
1987). The accelerated cation leaching induced
by increased H+ input in precipitation may lead
to cation nutrient shortage being faster on soils
with low GEI than on other soils. But the mechanism
of the possible influence of till geochemistry
on the occurrence of scleroderris canker remains
to be studied.
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Geological Survey of Finland, Special Paper 9
Relation between till geochemistry and the occurrence of scleroderris canker in Finland
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