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Forest, Range & Wildland Soils

Assessing Change in Soil-Site Productivity of Intensively Managed Loblolly Pine Plantations

^a Dep. of Forestry, 228 Cheatham Hall, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ., Blacksburg, VA 24060
^b MeadWestvaco Corp., P.O. Box 1950, Summerville, SC 29484

^* Corresponding author (meisenbi{at}vt.edu)

Intensively managed forests are among the most important sources of wood fiber and timber in the southern United States. There is a great deal of concern that wet-weather harvesting disturbances might diminish long-term soil-site productivity. Determining the true effect of harvesting disturbance and silvicultural treatments on long-term productivity of pine plantations is difficult because growth and yield are affected by changes in climate, silviculture, and genetics. Change in productivity rank among treatments was used as a new approach to evaluate harvest disturbance effects on changes in soil-site quality because it is less influenced by the confounding factors that affect tree growth. Three 20-ha loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) plantations were subjected to combinations of wet- and dry-weather harvesting and mechanical site preparations. Wet-weather harvesting had no discernable effect at the operational scale (3.3 ha) compared to dry harvesting on changes in soil-site quality when standard site preparation methods were used; however, results based on change in rank for site index indicated that the combination of wet harvesting and flat planting diminished productivity. Polypedon-scale (0.008 ha) investigations indicated that silviculture, inherent site factors, and disturbance affected drainage and changes in soil-site productivity. This study showed that the industrial practice of bedding maintained site productivity of wet-weather harvested stands on wet pine flats. These results are potentially important to nonindustrial private landowners whose plantations are not commonly bedded before replanting.

Abbreviations: ANCOVA, analysis of covariance • BMPs, best management practices • DB, dry harvested and bedded treatment • DEM, digital elevation model • DF, dry harvested and nonbedded treatment • HRI, harvest residue index • NRCS, Natural Resources Conservation Service • PDI, physical disturbance index • RCSB, rank change based on stand biomass • RCSI, rank change based on site index • RCTB, rank change based on individual tree biomass • SCFC, South Carolina Forestry Commission • SSURGO, NRCS soil survey geographic database • USDA, United States Department of Agriculture • USGS, United States Geologic Survey • USLE, universal soil loss equation • WB, wet harvested and bedded treatment • WF, wet harvested and nonbedded treatment • WMB, wet harvested, mole-plowed, and bedded treatment