Treesearch

Roads are essential to manage and use forest land. They can improve wildlife habitat and provide recreational opportunities. But roads are often controversial because they have so many different users-loggers, hikers, hunters, and off-road-vehicle drivers. Benefits to wildlife can be maximized and user conflicts minimized by careful planning and design. Decisions about gates, signs, and seasonal access should be made during the planning stage. Careful layout will ensure that sensitive habitats are protected and permanent improvements such as ponds and clearings are connected.

Defoliation is the removal of all or part of the foliage from the tree. Forest insects are the primary agents that can cause defoliation. They produce the widespread, noticeable defoliation that forest landowners, foresters, and the general public can easily recognize.

Bottomland hardwood forests normally regenerate with species found in the overstory. These species reflect the timing, duration, depth of water, and nature of the sediment in past flooding. The longer water stands during the growing season and the deeper the sediment, the fewer the species that are able to survive. Flooding patterns often change over the life of a bottomland hardwood stand. If conditions moderate, more species can regenerate the site; if flooding worsens and sediment builds up, fewer species can occupy the site.

The purpose of this Note is to help you become more technically informed about air pollution when serious problems need to be diagnosed by pollution specialists. (Except for ozone, most of the information discussed does not attempt to describe possible air pollution damage caused by long distance transport. This complex problem is currently under intense study.)

Mixed stands that include oaks, yellow-poplar, black cherry, maples, white ash, basswood, birches, American beech, and other species are commonly found in the central hardwood forest. Depending on site quality and past stand treatment, overstory composition may range from nearly pure stands of oak or yellow-poplar to mixtures of 20 or more species.

Oak declines are complex plant diseases that result when trees are first stressed by environmental factors and/or living organisms and are then invaded and sometimes killed by opportunistic secondary organisms.

The central hardwood forest covers a vast area of the United States where the dominant native vegetation is hardwood trees. It is one of the largest forest areas in the country and contains about 100 million acres. The forests include more than 70 hardwood tree species, several conifers, many shrubs and herbaceous plants, and a large number of animal species.

Borers cause millions of dollars in damaged wood annually to oak stands, and adversely affect the form and vigor of oak regeneration. A moth and four species of beetles cause most of the damage; the carpenterworm moth, the oak timberworm, the red oak borer, the living-beech borer, and the white oak borer. The larvae of these insects chew holes in the wood ranging from shotholes made by the oak timberworm to holes as large as 20 mm in diameter made by the carpenterworm. The life histories of these insects are complex and can be found in the literature.

Hardwoods can be regenerated best by clearcuttings, shelterwood cutting, or group selection.

Objectives of forest plantings can include one or more of the following: 1. Produce high quality timber and improve stand composition 2. Improve wildlife habitat 3. Reforest land not suited for agriculture 4. Arrest soil and wind erosion 5. Enhance esthetics