TIME TRENDS IN AGE-AGE COVARIANCES AND CORRELATIONS - EXAMPLES FROM NORWAY SPRUCE CLONES

A Norway spruce clonal test, established with 5 clones on 4 extremely contrasting sites in 1967 and remeasured for height 10 times until 1981 has been used for an investigation of the following 3 topics: 1. Description of juvenile-mature correlations by LAMBETH'S formula. 2. Investigation of time trends in age-age covariances, age-age correlations and standard deviations. 3. Proposal of a new formula for juvenile-mature correlations dependent on age. One obtains nearly perfect linear dependency between covariance and age as well as between standard deviation and age. The correlation coefficients show a rapid decrease in the first years, while this decrease diminishes and finally tends asymptotically towards a specific constant level. The proposed new formula for age-age correlations provides a considerably better fit between observed and expected values than LAMBETH'S formula.