Some Silvicultural Implications of Updating the Southern Region’s Old-Growth Guidance

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service’s Southern Region, in conjunction with the Southern Research Station (SRS), has chartered a formal team of managers, planners, and scientists to update the Southern Region’s 1997 guidance document on old-growth management and restoration. There are several silvicultural implications associated with old growth for the Region’s national forests. For example, regional-scale restoration initiatives have been established for several important but declining species, including longleaf pine (Pinus palustris), shortleaf pine (P. echinata), and white oak (Quercus alba). Open pine- and oak-dominated old-growth forests were once very common across the region, and their restoration focuses on thinning overstories, greatly reducing midstories, and the application of frequent prescribed fire. These treatments are usually designed to reduce arboreal richness, encourage certain shade-intolerant overstory species, and reduce stand densities to enhance the cover and diversity of grass- and forb-dominated understories. However, these treatments also diminish certain stand conditions (e.g., high stocking and biomass, arboreally rich stands) often mistakenly assigned to all old-growth forests. Other questions related to silvicultural practices in old stands, from determining the degree of maturity for candidate stands to allowable treatments and the long-term sustainability of old growth, will be addressed by this update. Ultimately, the team’s goal is to produce updated old-growth guidance by fiscal year 2024, thereby providing Southern Region managers and planners better, more scientifically robust information.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the 22nd Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference

Citation

Bragg, Don C. 2024. Some Silvicultural Implications of Updating the Southern Region’s Old-Growth Guidance. In: Bragg, Don C.; Oswald, Brian P.; Koerth, Nancy E., eds. Proceedings of the 22nd biennial southern silvicultural research conference. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-274. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station:147–155. https://doi.org/10.2737/SRS-GTR-274-Pap25.