Table 1.

Growth responses of green ash trees to three different placements of fertilizer and two rates.

	Caliper increase (cm)		Twig growth (cm)
	2003	2004^{^y}	2002	2003	2004
Entire root zone-full rate^{^z}	1.9	1.2b	41.9	63.7	15.5
Inner area-full rate	1.3	2.9a	39.8	73.9	14.0
Inner area-half rate	1.0	1.4b	34.8	61.0	14.0
Outer area-full rate	1.2	1.0b	38.7	74.3	17.0
Outer area-half rate	0.9	0.9b	46.2	60.9	14.6
Control	1.1	1.4b	50.3	64.8	13.3
P value	0.18	0.03	0.84	0.39	0.88

	SPAD			Leaf Area (cm²)
	2002	2003	2004^{^x}	2002	2003	2004
Entire root zone, full rate	48.36	47.82	37.99de	72.5	100.9	102.5
Inner area-full rate	48.68	50.20	42.12ae	61.6	110.7	122.2
Inner area-half rate	49.40	44.50	40.72ace	82.5	101.8	160.3
Outer area-full rate	49.96	47.28	40.16de	58.6	102.8	126.2
Outer area-half rate	46.60	43.60	37.69cd	85.1	94.4	146.7
Control	47.42	47.46	36.26bd	77.7	98.7	105.0
P value	0.68	0.60	0.08	0.32	0.72	0.27

↵^zEntire root zone = 4.8 m diameter square, full rate = 1.92 kg N/100 m², or 0.44 kg N/tree. Square footage or fertilizer amount was halved for other treatments. There were five replications of each treatment.
↵^yValues followed by the same letter are not significantly different at P ≤ 0.05
↵^xValues followed by the same letter are not significantly different at P ≤ 0.10