Pacific Southwest

Title: Overstory removal: stand factors related to success and failure

Author: Laacke, Robert J.; Fiddler, Gary O.

Date: 1986

Source: Res. Paper PSW-RP-183. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; 6 p

Station ID: RP-PSW-183

Description: Overstory removal can offer economic and esthetic advantages over clearcutting and regeneration, but projecting success is difficult. Twenty-nine units on nine operational overstory removal cuts in northern California were studied to determine what factors are related to satisfactory or unsatisfactory stocking after harvest. Stocking determinations were based on number of trees meeting minimum crop tree standards. Although all of the postharvest stands contained adequate numbers of trees, only about half passed minimal stocking standards based on number of trees meeting crop tree criteria. Only 2 of 11 preharvest stand characteristics tested were sufficiently associated with postharvest condition to be identified in discriminant analysis. The two characteristics were arithmetical average diameter at breast height of the overstory and total longitudinal cross-sectional area ofthe overstory trees. These two variables correctly identified postharvest stands as stocked 83 percent of the time and as unstocked 77 percent of the time, based on preharvest conditions.

Keywords: crop tree selection, mixed conifers, overstory removal

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Citation

Laacke, Robert J.; Fiddler, Gary O.   1986.  Overstory removal: stand factors related to success and failure .   Res. Paper PSW-RP-183. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; 6 p.