PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF SILVICULTURE Florence, November 26 th - 29 th 2014 ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF ORIENTAL PLANE THROUGH LEDS Tatiana Marras 1 , Kalliopi Radoglou 2 , Sonia Smirnakou 3 , Bartolomeo Schirone 4 1 DAFNE, Department, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy; tatianamarras@unitus.it 2 Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources, (Fmenr), Democritus University of Thrace (Duth), Orestiada, Greece 3 Forest Research Institute, Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER”, Thessaloniki, Greece 4 DAFNE Department, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy Light intensity required by forest species has been widely studied, leading to their classification in heliophilous, sciaphilous and intermediate species. Conversely, few studies are available on light quality requirements. Artificial lights for plant growth have been designed mainly for agricultural crops that are all heliophilous, with high percentages of blue and red wavelengths in order to increase the photosynthetic activity. These light sources may be considered adaptable to heliophilous forest species; in order to test this hypothesis, a presumed heliophilous species, Platanus orientalis, was cultivated under different LED and fluorescent light sources, commercially available, in a controlled growth chamber. Some seedlings showed a progressive yellowing or reddening of leaves, leading to the hypothesis of a light stress. Therefore, the real light conditions in which natural regeneration occurs were analysed. The Natural Reserve of Pantalica (Sicily), was chosen as study area. Light spectra were collected along Anapo river, in July, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., in correspondence of different points with and without natural regeneration. Seedlings resulted to grow in slight shadow, frequently interrupted by short sunflecks. The spectra associated to shadow and sunflecks resulted to be different, both in terms of quality and quantity. Therefore, it seems that Platanus orientalis is not properly heliophilous, as reported in literature; this fact may explain why, as some sciaphilous species, it lacks of a complete xantophyll cycle, showing only leaf hairs as a protection against light excess. The results of this research show that the analysis of light requirements for each species is essential to define the best light conditions, in terms of quality and quantity, for artificial propagation. Keywords: forest regeneration, light requirements, indoor propagation. Parole chiave: rinnovazione forestale, esigenze luminose, propagazione artificiale. http://dx.doi.org/10.4129/2cis-tm-art 1. Introduction P. orientalis L. belongs to the family of Platanaceae. It is a deep rooting tree with green alternate leaves that are usually lobed with a smooth margin. In autumn the leaves of many trees assume a ochre yellow pig- mentation. The flowering period occurs in March – April. The species is monoecious. The fruit is a sphe- rical infructescence, which is about 2 cm in diameter. The fruits often hang late as the spring on the trees. The twigs are greenish to brown with small lenticels. The buds are green, thick and protruding. The bark is grey- brown, small-scaly and flaking. It grows in sunny locations without tolerating continuous shadow. It is suitable for sandy, loamy and clay soils and tolerates pH from neutral to strongly alkaline. It prefers moist soil but can tolerate drought. The plant can tolerate strong winds but not maritime exposure. It can tolerate atmospheric pollution, too. P. orientalis grows natu- rally in the Balkan peninsula up to the 42° parallel. Eastward, it grows naturally in Turkey, Cyprus, in the countries of Western Asia as far as the western Hima- layas (Panetsos, 1984). It is an element of lowland riparian forests (Zangheri, 1976; Pignatti, 1982; Tutin et al., 1993), from 0 to 600 m a.s.l. (Pignatti, 1982). Platanus orientalis is a deciduous species in all the area of its natural distribution, exhibiting the seasonal alternation of growth and dormancy, which is a characteristic of the trees of the temperate zone. One exception is represented by the evergreen Oriental Plane of Crete island (Nikolakaki and Hajaje, 2001). In Italy, where the species has the westernmost limit of its distribution, it occurs in Sicily, Calabria, Campania and has been recently excluded from Tuscany. Platanus orientalis has conservation significance as a cha- racteristic species for the habitat 92C0 – Platanus orientalis and Liquidambar orientalis woods (Plata- nion orientalis) (All. I dir. 92/43 CEE) = G1.38 [Platanus orientalis] woods (EUNIS), and is also included in the Italian Red Data List as a vulnerable species (Caruso et al., 2008). A big enemy which this species has to face in Italy is Ceratocystis platani, the agent of the canker stain of Plane. Platanus spp. are the only hosts of this pathogen. Penetration only occurs through wounds and the fungus colonizes the bark and also the wood. The main intervent which has been used in Italy against the expansion of the infection is to cut and burn the infected tree leaving the coppice on the - 110 -