Twenty-nine years of development in planted cherrybark oak-sweetgum mixtures: implications for future mixed-species hardwood plantations

Abstract

Results from a long-term planted mixture of cherrybark oak (Quercus pagoda Raf.) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.) showed sweetgum taller in height and larger in diameter than cherrybark oak early in plantation development. By age 17, cherrybark oak was similar in height and diameter with sweetgum and by age 21 was taller in height and larger in diameter than sweetgum depending on spacing arrangement. By age 29, cherrybark oak was competing with other cherrybark oak in the overstory canopy. The ascendance of cherrybark oak above sweetgum in intimate plantation mixtures confirms results from bottomland hardwood stand development in natural stands. Future bottomland hardwood mixed-species plantation research must include stand-level replication. Further, pure plantings of each species in the mixture are necessary to compare development to the planted mixture.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the 16th biennial southern silvicultural research conference

Citation

Lockhart, Brian Roy; Ezell, Andrew W.; Hodges, John D.; Clatterbuck, Wayne K. 2012. Twenty-nine years of development in planted cherrybark oak-sweetgum mixtures: implications for future mixed-species hardwood plantations. In: Butnor, John R., ed. 2012. Proceedings of the 16th biennial southern silvicultural research conference. e-Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-156. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 189-194.