Pacific Southwest

Title: Accelerating development of late-successional features in second-growth pine stands of the Goosenest Adaptive Management Area

Author: Ritchie, Martin W.; Harcksen, Kathleen A.

Date: 2005

Source: In: Ritchie, Martin W.; Maguire, Douglas A.; Youngblood, Andrew, tech. coordinators. Proceedings of the Symposium on Ponderosa Pine: Issues, Trends, and Management, 2004 October 18-21, Klamath Falls, OR. Gen. Tech. Rep PSW-GTR-198. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture: 81-93

Station ID: GTR-PSW-198

Description: This paper describes implementation and early results of a large-scale, interdisciplinary experiment in the Goosenest Adaptive Management Area in northeastern California. The study is designed to investigate development of late-successional forest attributes in second-growth ponderosa pine stands. The experiment has four treatments replicated five times and encompasses 1600 hectares, including controls. Complete treatment implementation took five years, including application of prescribed fire. Initial post-treatment measurements were conducted in 2002. Change in quadratic mean diameter averaged 12.5 cm among thinned stands. Initial estimates of post-treatment growth from remeasured diameters indicate little immediate impact of treatments on individual tree growth. However increment cores from dominant trees showed an increase in diameter growth by 11 to 14 percent in the treated plots during the first three years after treatment. Quadratic mean diameter in thinned stands was still well below that reported in reference old-growth stands. Among those stands treated with a targeted change in species composition, the mean treatment effect was an increase of 16 percent in proportion of pine basal area, with a range from 6 to 29 percent. The control treatment and thin from below treatment showed no significant change in species composition. The initial application of prescribed fire resulted in little mortality (less than 1 percent for large trees) and had no immediate impact on the diameter distribution. Logging damage observed on residual trees varied between 2 and 6 percent, depending on treatment and tree size.

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Citation

Ritchie, Martin W.; Harcksen, Kathleen A.  2005.  Accelerating development of late-successional features in second-growth pine stands of the Goosenest Adaptive Management Area.   In: Ritchie, Martin W.; Maguire, Douglas A.; Youngblood, Andrew, tech. coordinators. Proceedings of the Symposium on Ponderosa Pine: Issues, Trends, and Management, 2004 October 18-21, Klamath Falls, OR. Gen. Tech. Rep PSW-GTR-198. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture: 81-93.