m Research Noteso-265

1981

Description and Yields of an 11 -Year-Old Hardwood Stand on Sharkey Clay Soil

R. M. Krinard, and R. L. Johnson

SUMMARY

A hardwood stand on Sharkey clay soil, where

dominant and codominant trees averaged 1.8 inches

dbh and 18.4 feet tall, yielded 17.8 tons per acre

(dry weight) at age 11.

Additional keywords: Green ash (Fraxinus

pennsylvanica), American elm (Ulmus americana),

sugarberry (Celtis laevigafa), Nuttall oak (Quercus

nuttallii), water hickory (Carya aquatica), roughleaf

dogwood (Cornus drummondii), biomass.

INTRODUCTION

Biomass yields are unknown from young, evenaged hardwood stands on slackwater sites in the

Midsouth. Although these sites are less productive

than medium-textured soils, it would be desirable

to know their potential contribution to the energy

picture. This note presents yields of an 11 -year-old

hardwood stand on Sharkey clay soil (figure 1) that

developed following logging of the overstory, shearing of stumps and remaining stems, removal of

debris with a dozer blade, and planting of Nuttall oak

(Quercus nuttallii Palmer) acorns at 5- by 1 O-foot

spacing. Five-foot wide, mowed swaths on IO-foot

centers were maintained the first 5 years after clearing and reopened after the 10th and 11 th growing

seasons. The stand is located on the Delta Experimental Forest, Washington County, Mississippi.

METHODS

All stems >l .O foot in height were tallied on fifteen

5- by 30-foot measurement plots. The plots were

parallel to the mowed strips. Data taken were species,

total height, diameter at l-foot heights (dof), dbh for

stems >4.5 feet tall, and tree crown class.

All trees in a plot were cut within 1 to 3 inches

of the ground with a chainsaw and fed into a treelimb chipper. Chips were caught in a woven nylon

bag placed over the end of the discharge chute,

weighed, and dumped into a graduated container to

determine cubic volume. For each plot, a sample of

chips was taken for moisture determination. Chips

were dried in a kiln at 104OC until they reached

a constant weight.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Tree data, in number of stems and basal area per

acre, and yields, in volume and weight, are based

on the hardwood rows themselves. To obtain per

acre values for the area as it exists with alternating

mowed rows, one must divide the values in half.

A total of 20 species was found in the 15 plots.

Four species-green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica

Marsh.), American elm (Ulmus americana L.), sugarberry (Celtis laevigata Willd.), and Nuttall oak-made

up 83 percent of the stems. The major species was

green ash, with about a third of the total stems and

a third of the basal area. Elm and sugarberry combined had about 40 percent of the stems but only

a fifth of the basal area, while Nuttall oak had 14

percent of the stems and a fifth of the basal area.

Seventy-six percent of the stems were >4.5 feet

tall with an average density of 10,551 per acre

(range 4,937 to 16,843). Trees >l .O foot tall (including trees B4.5 feet) averaged 13,900 stems per acre

(range 5,518 to 20,618). Basal area (dbh) averaged

59.0 square feet per acre (range 39.0 to 91.4)

Southern Forest Experiment Station/T-l0210 U.S. Postal Services Bldg., 701 Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, La. 70113

Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Serving Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Eastern Oklahoma, Tennessee, Eastern Texas.

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Figure 1 .-Eleven-year-old hardwood stand with 5foot mowed

strips prior to cuffing.

Maximum tree sizes were: dof-5.4 inches, sugarberry; dbh-4.4 inches, water hickory (Carya aquatica

(Michx. f.) Nutt.); and height-29 feet, honeylocust

(Gleditsia triacanthos L.). Only 581 trees per acre

had dbh 22.0 inches and 2,575 trees per acre had

dbh from 1 .O to 1 .Q inches. For all stems, 3.5 percent

(484 per acre) were 220 feet in height, 14.5 percent

(2,013 per acre) were 15 to 19 feet tall, and 23.5

percent (3,272 per acre) were 10 to 14 feet tall.

For stems >l .O feet in height, 14 percent (1 ,917

per acre) were classified as dominant or codominant

crown class, at age 11. Fourteen percent were tallied

as intermediate and 72 percent suppressed. Of the

dominant/codominant trees, 30 percent were ash

(581 per acre), 28 percent Nuttall oak(503 per acre),

21 percent elm (407 per acre), 11 percent water

hickory (213 per acre), 5 percent sugarberry (97

per acre), and 3 percent overcup oak (Quercus lyrata

Walt.) (58 per acre). Other dominant/codominant

species were honeylocust, red maple (Acer rubrum L.),

and haw (Crataegus spp.). The average dominant/

codominant stem was 1.8 inches dbh (range 0.7 to

4.4 inches), and 18.4 feet tall (range 11 to 29 feet).

By species, average heights of dominant/codominant

trees were: water hickory, 21 feet; sugarberry and

ash, 20 feet; Nuttall oak and elm, 17 feet; and overcup oak, 16 feet.

Green chipped volume per acre averaged 3,073

cubic feet (range 1,379 to 5,009). Dry weight per

acre averaged 35,635 pounds (range 21,990 to

58,309) or an average annual production of 1.62

tons per acre (range 1 .OO to 2.65).

Hitchcock (1979) reported 2-, 4-, and 6-year-old

hardwood stands in Tennessee on oak-hickory sites

(oak site index 70 at age 50) with net annual productions of 1.4, 1.1, and 1.4 dry tons per acre.

This study was on an oak-gum-cypress site with

Nuttall oak site index of 90 (Broadfoot 1976). Where

only the measurement plots are considered, without the mowed swaths, yields appear similar. The

influence of mowed swaths on tree development in

this stand is not known, although it is unlikely that

mowing affected stand growth significantly considering the species, age, and site represented. A

continuous stand may have lower biomass production

per unit area than indicated by present values due

to greater competition.

Best estimator of plot volume and dry weight was

plot I: diameters*. In this study, where treess4.5 feet

accounted for 24 percent of the stems but only 1

percent of the Z dof* and 0.2 percent of Z dof**h,

dbh gave higher r* and lower S,, values than dof.

Predictive equations on an acre basis for yields at

age 11 are as follows:

Chipped ft3=-5196 + 220.5 (BA) - 1.26_1BA)*

(R*=0.98, S,,=479 ft3 (S,,/X )100

=15.59/o)

Tons dry wt = - 1.3768 + 0.3256 (BA)

(r*=0.95, S,,=l.36 t., (S,,/x)lOO

=7.6x)

LITERATURE CITED

Broadfoot, Walter M.

1976. Hardwood suitability for and properties of

important Midsouth soils. U.S. Dep. Agric. For.

Serv. Res. Pap. SO-127, 84 p. South. For. Exp.

Stn., New Orleans, La.

Hitchcock, Harry C., III.

1979. Biomass of southern hardwood regeneration estimated by vertical line sampling. J. For.

77(8):474-477.

R. M. Krinard is Mensurationist and Ft. L. Johnson is Principal Silviculturist at the Southern Hardwoods Laboratory, maintained at

Stoneville, Mississippi, by the Southern Forest Experiment Station, Forest Service-USDA, in cooperation with the Mississippi

Agricultural Experiment Station and the Southern Hardwood Forest Research Group.

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