Twenty-year survival and growth of six bottomland hardwood species

摘要

In 1970 and 1971, seven species, cherrybark oak (Quercus falcata var. pagodifolia), water oak (Q. nigra L.), willow oak (Q. phelios L.), Shumard oak (Q. shumardii Bucld).), Nuttall oak (Q. nuttallii Palmer), sweet pecan (Carya illinoensis (Wangenh)K. Koch) and blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica Marsh.), were planted on a Commerce silt loam site in the floodplain of the Mississippi and Red Rivers in east-central Louisiana. The original planting was conducted to compare the effects of two seedling types (bare-rooted and tublings) and two planting techniques (dibble-hole planting and auger-hole planting) on survival and growth (Roth II 1972). The initial study indicated that water oak was the best species for the site and that due to poor growth, blackgum was unsuitable for the site. After approximately 20 years of growth, water oak continued to maintain the best survival and height growth, while cherrybark oak had a greater mean diameter. Biackgum by age 20 had such poor survival that tt was not rerneasured. Of the six surviving species, mean survival ranged from a low of 17 percent for Shumard oak to a high of 68.2 percent for water oak. Mean diameter ranged from 6.2 inches for sweet pecan to 10.3 inches for cherrybark oak. Height ranged from a mean of 37.4 feet for sweet pecan to 61.0 feet for water oak.