Title: SILVAH 5.1: developing interim guidelines for managing oak in Pennsylvania through multi-agency cooperation

Author: Brose, Patrick; Stout, Susan; Miller, Gary; Gottschalk, Kurt

Year: 2003

Publication: In: Van Sambeek, J. W.; Dawson, Jeffery O.; Ponder Jr., Felix; Loewenstein, Edward F.; Fralish, James S., eds. Proceedings of the 13th Central Hardwood Forest Conference; Gen. Tech. Rep. NC-234. St. Paul, MN: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, North Central Research Station: 360

Abstract: The SILVAH decision-support system developed by numerous researchers at the Forestry Sciences Lab in Irvine, PA, has a proven track record for prescribing appropriate silvicultural treatments for the cherry-maple and northern hardwood forests of the Allegheny Plateau region. However, it has had only limited usage in mixed-oak forests of the same region and virtually no usage in the mixed-oak forests of neighboring regions (Ridge and Valley, Blue Ridge Mountains, etc.) of Pennsylvania because it is not perceived to be applicable to these regions. In late 1999, the Northeastern Research Station, Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, Pennsylvania State University, Allegheny National Forest, and the private sector began a cooperative effort to make SILVAH more applicable and widely used.