Treesearch

Hybrid poplar plantations are established by planting dormant cuttings in close spacing, usually 4 x 4 feet. They are cultivated during the first growing season to eliminate competition from grasses and weeds. After the first year, the more vigorous trees effectively shade out lower vegetation. But rapid tree growth often makes thinning necessary after 2 or 3 growing seasons.

Most of the forest land in the white pine region of the Northeast is owned in relatively small blocks or woodlots. The way these many small woodlots are managed can affect the forest economy of the entire region. Good forest management can increase the owner's income and provide more and better raw material for the wood processing industries.

In connection with a seedbed-preparation study, a census of the mouse populations on several areas on the Penobscot Experimental Forest near Bangor, Maine, was made in October 1953.

Regeneration after clear-cutting second-growth northern hardwoods is often unsatisfactory, in both quantity and species composition. A small area on the Bartlett Experimental Forest near Bartlett, N.H., provides a good example.

Stands of mixed oaks and yellow-poplar form the most valuable forest crop on many sites in central and northern New Jersey and in the Delaware Valley of southern New Jersey. However, these stands often contain shrubs and low-value hardwood trees that prevent satisfactory restocking of cutover areas.

The white pine weevil is the most serious insect enemy of white pine in the Northeast, where more than 75 percent of these valuable trees are weeviled. Weevil larvae feed just beneath the bark; this kills the leader, causing folks, crooks, and a subsequent degrade of timber. In fact, widespread damage by the weevil has reduced the demand for white pine planting stock considerably.

West Virginia farmers own one-third of the forest in the State - more than 3 million acres. If these woodland areas were given the same attention and care that is given to cropland, within a few years West Virginia farm forests could be producing their proportionate share of the farm income. Yet the farm woods are almost completely neglected.

Fungus diseases of poplars might be spread to new locations if hybrid poplar cuttings (now being test-planted in various parts of the northeast) were not sterilized before shipment. Among these diseases are the canker-producing fungi Septoria musiva and Dothichiza populea and the leafblotch fungus Septotinia populiperda.

Fungus diseases of hybrid poplars may be spread by spores that lodge in the resinous coating of buds of dormant cuttings, and in the lenticels. Surface sterilization by dipping the cuttings in fungicides was tested to determine whether such treatment would prevent the germination of spores of the canker-producing fungi Septoria musiva and Dothichiza populea and the leaf-blotch fungus Septotinia populiperda.

In January 1946 a small study of thinning and prescribed burning was started in an old-field stand mostly of shortleaf pines about 38 years old. The stand is located on private land in Salem County, N. J.