Southern Research Station

Title: Growth Predictions for Tree Species Planted on Marginal Soybean Lands in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Author: Groninger, J.W. ; Aust, W.M.; Miwa, M.; Stanturf, John A.

Date: 2000

Source: Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, First Quarter 2000

Description: The establishment of bottomland hardwood forest stands and riparian buffers on frequently-flooded soybean (Glycine max.) lands in the Lower Mississippi Valley represents a tremendous opporunity to prvide both economic and environmental benefits to the region. Selecting appropriate sites for reestablishing tree cover, accurately predicting the productivity of planted trees and optimally martching species to site are critical for the economic justification and implementation of tree plating in conservation prgrams.

This study tests a low-cost methodology that incorporates the expert system developed by Baker and Broadfoot (1979) to predict tree growth rates calibrated with soils data from recently published Natural Resources Conservatoin Service (NCRS) soil surveys specific for combinations of tree species and soil series. This information is used to make site index projections for economically-marginal soybean lands. Size index estimates ranged from 28.0 m (92 ft) for cottonwood (base age 30) on Mhoun soils to 18.0 m (61 ft) for sycamore (base age 50) on Forestdale soils. Use of this method results in tree growth predictions that are both more mechanistically-based and often more conservative than the site index prjections published in soil surveys, particularly for species intolerent of flooding during the growing season

Keywords: Bottomland hardwoods, CRP, Glycine max, Lower Mississippi Valley, marginal soybean lands, site index, soil survey, tree growth, tree planting, tree species-site relations

View and Print this Publication (507 KB)

Pristine Version:  An uncaptured or "pristine" version of this publication is available. It has not been subjected to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and therefore does not have any errors in the text. However it is a larger file size and some people may experience long download times. The "pristine" version of this publication is available here:

View and Print the PRISTINE copy of this Publication (832 KB)

Publication Notes: 

• We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information.
• This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain.

 Get the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat reader or Acrobat Reader for Windows with Search and Accessibility

Citation

Groninger, J.W. ; Aust, W.M.; Miwa, M.; Stanturf, John A.  2000.  Growth Predictions for Tree Species Planted on Marginal Soybean Lands in the Lower Mississippi Valley.   Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, First Quarter 2000