Restoration of Oak-Hickory Forests in Southeastern Ohio
Oak and hickory forests are not regenerating within the Southern Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau due to more mesic species like maples creating closed canopies shading out oak and hickory seedlings.
This tool showcases research on harvesting and repeated fire, which can improve conditions for oaks and shows how the highly dissected topography of this region influences and aids management efforts.
In particular this tool describes:
- research revealing the influence of topography, partial harvesting, and prescribed burning on oak regeneration; and
- the use of ecomapping to define landtypes that, along with forest inventory data, can be used to determine where to invest more effort into regenerating oak.
The information is based on several research projects, namely: 1) a Fire and Fire Surrogate Study in the Ohio hills region, 2) the influence of an Integrated Moisture Index, 3) ecological mapping of Landtypes and Landtype Phases, and 4) an assessment of climatic change pressures. These projects are related in that each provides supporting information to help forest managers restore oak and hickory habitat and improve regeneration into the next forest.
Forest managers can apply the insights from this research to optimize their oak restoration efforts.
