During the last three years, 80% of mining permits in Virginia listed forestland as the post-mining land use. Adequate stocking and growth of tree stands at time of bond-release eligibility and beyond is an important beginning for returning mined lands to a productive state. In order to ensure reforestation success, biological constraints, including low mine soil fertility and competition from herbaceous ground cover, must be overcome. The effect of cultural treatments on the growth of three commercial pine species on reclaimed surface-mined land in southwestern Virginia was studied. In June, 1981, containerized seedlings of loblolly (Pinus taeda L.), Virginina (P. virginiana Mill.), and eastern white (P. strobus L.) pines were planted on a flat bench site (Site I) and a site returned to approximate original contour (Site I1). Seedlings were artificially inoculated with Pisolithus tinctorius ((Pers.) Coker and Couch), fertilized with slow-release fertilizer pellets at time of planting and broadcast with N fertilizer prior to the fourth growing season, and the ground cover around them was controlled with herbicides through the third growing season. Survival and growth of these seedlings after the first and second growing seasons were reported by Schoenholtz and Burger (1984). The response of these pines to treatments at the end of the third and fifth growing seasons were evaluated in this study. Treatment effects on foliar nutrient levels and soil properties were also examined. At the end of five years, loblolly and Virginia pines have been successfully established and are performing as well as trees in stands growing don natural soils in the southeastern U.S. Eastern white pine grows slowly the first three years and was just beginning to exhibit a response to treatment. Ground-cover control had the greatest effect on loblolly pine volume-index and elicited as much as an 86% increase in volume-index at the end of five growing seasons. Volume-index of Virginia pine was improved with ground-cover control on Site I and with fertilization on Site II. All species show an additive growth response to the combined treatments. At age five, white pine responded synergistically to combined fertilizer and ground-cover control treatments.
The peak response to treatments occurred generally at age two for both loblolly and Virginia pines, while white pine response never peaked. The status of foliar and soil nutrients corroborated the importance of these cultural treatments in improving growth. Negative relationships between volume-index and foliar N and mineralizable N showed that N was not limiting pine growth at this time. Mature stands of serecia lespedeza may have supplied adequate N. A positive relationship between white pine volume-index and foliar P levels suggested that insufficient P may have limited growth of this species. As mine soils in this region age, soil P tends to be fixed by Fe-oxides present in the spoil, making competition for low levels of available-P even greater. Fertilization and ground-cover control will improve tree growth on reforested surface mines by alleviating complex interacting water and nutrient deficiencies. These treatments, implemented during establishment, were still evident at age five, a time that coincides with bond-release eligibility, and response curves suggested that response to treatments will continue as the stands develop. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/44074 |
| Date | 01 August 2012 |
| Creators | Klemp, Mary Therese |
| Contributors | Forestry, Burger, James A., Daniels, W. Lee, Nichols, Thomas J., Smith, David William |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | xi, 106 leaves, BTD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | OCLC# 18564143, LD5655.V855_1988.K646.pdf |
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