Land for forest plantations is declining while demand for forest products is increasing, creating concern over sustainable forest management. Maintenance of site productivity is fundamental to forest sustainability, and an assessment of cumulative height growth is a useful index of productivity. Loblolly pine height data were used from four research plantations installed by the project Cooperative Research in Sustainable Silviculture and Soil Productivity from Texas to Georgia. The sites vary in soil characteristics, management history, nutrient status at time of planting, and age (from 4 to 9 years). Each site is a randomized complete block design with a factorial treatment arrangement of harvesting practices (minimum and maximum disturbance) and different establishment practices (e.g., bedding, fertilization, herbaceous weed control, herbaceous weed control plus fertilizer, and burning). An integrated statistical analysis using the change in height with age was used for the evaluation of longer-term treatment effects. Harvesting practices had a significant treatment effect on the change in height with age (p < 0.03) at one site, but did not significantly affect early height growth at the other three sites (p > 0.37). On the other hand, establishment practices had a significant effect on the change in height with age (p < 0.01), independent of accompanying harvesting practice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-01162007-115703 |
| Date | 17 January 2007 |
| Creators | McCarty, Shanna Marie |
| Contributors | Thomas J. Dean, James P. Geaghan, Quang V. Cao |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-01162007-115703/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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