| Summary: | ABSTRACT The study of the relationships between the yield potential of forest stands and the conditions offered for plant development is fundamental for the adequate management of the forest when aiming at sustainable high yields. However, these relations are not clear, especially in commercial forests, on rugged terrain where relationships between the landscape, soil, and plants are more complex. Considering this, we tested the hypothesis that the morphological aspects of the soil conditioned by topography are the main limiting factors for tree development. Our objective was to evaluate the edaphic and topographic influence on the dendrometric variation of Pinus taeda L. of a forest stand in a subtropical climate at high altitude. For that, Spearman’s correlation analysis and canonical correspondence were performed on two data datasets containing pedological, topographic, and dendrometric information of a commercial plantation of Pinus taeda, in the Campo Belo do Sul, Santa Catarina state, Brazil. Soil sampling and characterization was performed in two distinct designs. The first design was based on the morphological description of 11 soil profiles. The second was performed with intensive prospecting of the area, with 102 sampling locations determined through conditioned Latin hypercube sampling. For each sampling point, the height and diameter of the four nearest trees were measured and the terrain attributes were calculated from the digital elevation model. The solum depth, the thickness of the superficial horizon, elevation, and vertical distance to channel network were the main conditioning factors of the dendrometric variation, wherein taller trees were found in deeper soils, with a thicker surface horizon, in lower areas that are vertically closer to the drainage network. Our results showed that the selection of topographic and morphological variables has a significant effect on the tree height and should therefore be used to select homogeneous areas for the development of the species. In addition, we showed the importance of using an intensive sampling survey to understand dendrometric variation.
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