Understory vegetation 3 years after implementing uneven-aged silviculture in a shortleaf pine-oak stand (1997)Shelton, M. G., & Murphy, P. A. (1997). Understory vegetation 3 years after implementing uneven-aged silviculture in a shortleaf pine-oak stand. Southern Forest Experiment Station, Research Paper SO-296. Retrieved from http://www.srs.fs.fed.us/pubs/144 The effects of retaining overstory hardwoods on understory vegetation were determined after implementing uneven-aged silviculture usingsingle-tree selection in a shortleaf pine-oak stand (Pinus echinata Mill. and Quercus spp.) in the Ouachita Mountains. Treatments were the following hardwood basal areas (square feet per acre) and spatial arrangements: 0, 15grouped, 15-scattered, 30-scattered, and an untreated control. Pine basal area was reduced by harvesting to 60 ft2/acre in all treatments except the control, and the desired hardwood basal area and arrangement were achieved by injecting unwanted hardwoods with herbicide. Monitoring was conducted at 10 permanent locations within each 0.5-acre plot of the randomized, complete block design with four replications. Pine regeneration during the first growing season following harvest was virtually nil because there was little advance regeneration and the preceding seed crop was poor. A good seed crop occurred during 1989 (180,000 sound pine seeds per acre),resulting in a mean of 2,730 seedlings per acre the following growing season with no significant differences among treatments. Mortality over the next 2 years reduced this base to 1,925 seedlings per acre for the O-hardwood treatment and 0 seedlings per acre for the control.Oak regeneration averaged 2,370 rootstocks per acre after the third growing season and had a mean milacre stocking of 63 percent; no significant differences occurred among treatments.Pine regeneration was judged to be adequate for the O-hardwood treatment and within openings for the 15 grouped treatment but was inadequate elsewhere.Results indi-cate the importance of overstory-understory relationships in uneven-aged silviculture http://www.srs.fs.fed.us/pubs/144
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