Planting density and silvicultural intensity impacts on loblolly pine stand development in the western gulf coastal plain through age 8
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Commercial plantation growers need to know how planting density and cultural regime intensity affect loblolly pine plantation productivity, development and value to make sound management decisions. This knowledge is especially important given the diversity of traditional products, such as pulpwood, chip-n-saw, and sawtimber, and potential products, such as bioenergy feedstock and carbon, from plantations. While there has been considerable research reported on general effects of planting density alone and of cultural intensity alone, relatively limited research has been reported on how plantation performance may be affected by combinations of planting density and cultural intensity across a range of planting densities and silvicultural regimes on representative soils (Carlson and others 2009, Quicke and others 1999, Rahman and others 2006, Zhao and others 2011).