Four Site-Preparation Techniques for Regenerating Pine-Hardwood Mixtures in the Piedmont
Abstract
Four variations of the fell-and-burn technique, a system developed to produce mixedpine- hardwood stands in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, were compared in the Piedmont region. All variations of this technique successfully improved the commercial value of low-quality hardwood stands by introducing a pine component. After six growing seasons, loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) occupied the dominant crown position and oaks the codominant position in fell-and-burn treated stands on poor to medium quality sites. The precisetiming offelling residual stems, as prescribed by the fell-and-burn technique, may be,flexible because winter and spring, felling produced similar results. Although summer site preparation burns reduced hardwood height growth by reducing the length of thefirst growing season, they did not improve pine survival or growth. Pines were as tall as hardwoods withinfour growing seasons in burnedplots and within sixgrowing seasons in unburned plots. Additional research is needed to determine the level or intensity of site preparation needed to establish pine-hardwood mixtures over a rangeof site conditions. South. J. Appl. For. 21(3):116-122.