Virginia’s 8th Forest Survey Shows Loss of 128,000 acres

Data collected in the five years, 2002 to 2007, by Virginia Department of Forestry forest inventory crews has been analyzed and summarized by the US Forest Service as Virginia’s 8th Forest Survey.

Since the last survey published in 2002, there has been an estimated net loss of forest land of nearly 128,000 acres. Forests now cover 15.7 million acres of Virginia’s 25.4 million acres, according to the survey. With an average plot re-measurement period of 5.2 years, the net loss was at an annual rate of 25,000 acres per year, up from 20,000 acres per year in the 7th survey.

Despite the loss of forestland, positive net growth on the remaining acres has increased the total biomass by 50 million dry tons and total growing stock wood volume by 18 million cubic feet. Therefore the amount of carbon stored in Virginia’s forests has increased by nearly 6%.

Despite the loss of trees to gypsy moth defoliation, hemlock wooly adelgid, southern pine beetle and hurricane Isabel in 2003, mortality rates were lower during the 8th survey period than the previous survey period.

Regional differences in forest land loss, growth and mortality exists across Virginia and these will be addressed in future posts. If you would like to explore the 8th survey data further you can visit the USFS Forest Inventory data website for more details.

Breeding American Chestnuts for Restoration

It that’s time of year again - time to backcross chestnuts as part of the Department of Forestry’s American chestnut restoration program. At the Department’s Lesesne State Forest in Nelson County foresters bagged flowers on the first- and second-backcross trees we having growing there. The backcross trees were created by making hybrids with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut, and then pollinating the hybrids with pure American pollen. The resulting first-backcrosses were grown and then pollinated with American pollen for the second-backcross. The first-backcrosses are the trees shown in the pictures with bagged flowers.

In the next couple of weeks we will be pollinating these flowers with pollen collected from surviving American tress. The resulting nuts, and trees raised from those nuts, will be chestnuts with roughly 7/8’s or 15/16’s American genes.

The ultimate goal of these efforts is a population of chestnuts with predominantly American characteristics with blight resistance as strong as that of the Chinese chestnut. This population of chestnuts could then be used to restore chestnuts to the Virginia forest landscape.

The backcrossing work is being led by Research Forester Wayne Bowman, with assistance form various volunteers from the Department of Forestry staff. The Department, under Wayne's leadership, is also raising backcross seedlings from the American Chestnut Foundation's Meadowview Farm, and has established backcross plantings at Matthews State Forest near Galax.

Forest Health Review - Spring 2008

The current issue of the forest health review provides a detailed description of last years southern pine beetle activity as well as forecasts for this years southern pine beetle and gypsy moth activity. Also, updates on emerald ash borer, beech bark disease, the ‘Don’t Move Firewood’ campaign, and the Early Detection Rapid Response Program. An article on suburban forests details the problems posed by high deer densities and invasive species.

The full report can be downloaded at:

http://www.dof.virginia.gov/health/publications.shtml#ForestHealthUpdate

Effects of Establishment Methods and Initial Seedling Size on Early Northern Red Oak Performance

In early 2006 the Virginia Department of Forestry installed a test of the effects of different establishment methods and initial seedling size on northern red oak survival and growth. There were two old-field locations, one in Louisa County and the other in Washington County.


Northern red oak seedlings from the DOF’s Augusta Forestry Center were graded into three root collar diameter classes – small (0.2 inches), medium (0.3 inches), and large (0.4 inches) and planted in early March 2006 using one of five establishment treatments: 1) no treatment; 2) VisPore mulch mat plus 4-foot Tubex tree shelter; 3) spot spraying of a 2-ft radius spot using a 2% glyphosate solution; 4) 4-foot Tubex tree shelter plus 2-ft radius glyphosate spot spraying; and 5) VisPore mulch mat only.

After two years, all the trees are off to a very slow start. Even the best of the seedlings have grown only about 1.5 feet in height and 0.06 inches in groundline diameter (GLD). But it looks like the way they are established (i.e. in tubes or not) has a lot more to do with their performance than does their initial size. And it seems as if the seedlings in the tubes are spindly - although surviving better and growing in height, they aren’t growing as much in GLD.

Comparing establishment treatments shows that the Tubex shelter was essential for survival / browse protection.

The VisPore mat and spot herbicide treatment resulted in similar survival and growth. There was no effect of initial seedling size on survival. The smallest seedlings have grown less than medium or large seedlings.

Without protective shelters, most of the seedlings in the study are either dead or in the severely browsed condition seen at left.

Forest Research Review

The Research Program of the Virginia Department of Forestry published its latest edition of its Forest Research Review in April. The introduction of this publication is reproduced below.

A PDF of the report can be downloaded from: http://www.dof.virginia.gov/research/publications.shtml#ForestResearchReview

"It’s been a busy six months since our last publication. In October, we helped to host the conference "Northern Limits – Restoring the Longleaf Pine Ecosystem in Virginia" in Wakefield. Also in October, we completed collection of our loblolly pine second generation improved seed crop from the orchard in Milledgeville, GA. The best 20 families produced in excess of 3,200 bushels of cones that yielded more than 6,000 pounds of seed for the future seedling crops from our Garland Gray Nursery. With help from the Forest Nutrition Cooperative, we began installation in December of a study of loblolly pine response to varying intensities of mid-rotation thinning in combination with fertilization. Before tree growth resumes in the spring, we will also remeasure VDOF’s mid-rotation fertilizer tests, as well as a MeadWestvaco density and fertilization trial. And just this week, we installed multiple locations of a study to look at the effects of new insecticides for controlling tipmoth in young loblolly pine.

In this issue, you’ll find summaries of recent information gathered from tests of clonal loblolly pine plantations; performance in Virginia of loblolly and longleaf pine from various geographic seed sources; early effects of biosolid applications on loblolly pine growth; growth of loblolly pine seedlings interplanted in understocked one-year-old plantations, and responses of southern red oak to crop tree release and fertilization. And we’re introducing a new feature highlighting the results of our collaborations with research cooperatives. We’ll take time in each issue to summarize recent reports from the various cooperatives in which VDOF is a member, including the Tree Improvement, Forest Nutrition, and Growth and Yield cooperatives. We hope you’ll find the information interesting and useful.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments, and be sure to visit our Web site at http://www.dof.virginia.gov/research/publications.shtml to browse through all the publications, fact sheets and analytical tools from the VDOF Research Program during its more than 53-year history."

You may contact the research program staff with any questions or suggestions you may have:

Jerre Creighton, research program manager, Central Office; (434) 977-6555; jerre.creighton@dof.virginia.gov

Wayne Bowman, research forester, Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest; (434) 983-2175; wayne.bowman@dof.virginia.gov

Onesphore Bitoki, tree improvement forester, New Kent Forestry Center;

(804) 966-2201; ones.bitoki@dof.virginia.gov

Virginia Forest Type Map 1940

In 1940 the US Forest Service conducted the first systematic forest survey in Virginia. Survey crews put in over 31,000 ¼-acre plots spaced at 10 chains along cruise lines 10 miles apart. The data collected were used to produce tabular summaries of forest conditions and stocking. The data were also used to produce a general forest type map.

The old map is printed in green and white on an 8-1/2 by 11 inch page and is difficult to read. To create a more informative map, I scanned the original map, geo-registered it with the 2000 Census County map, and created a modern GIS vector dataset. I feel this map is much easier to use.

One of the interesting things to note are the distributions of the pine-hardwood types (loblolly-hardwood, Virginia pine-hardwood, shortleaf pine-hardwood, shortleaf – pitch pine-hardwood, and white pine-hardwood). Keep in mind that the definition of pine-hardwood stands include any stand with 25% or greater pine volume.

Click on map for a bigger image:

National Woodland Owner Survey

The National Woodland Owner Survey Table Maker is now available online.

This tool allows users to generate custom tables based on the 2002-2006 NWOS data. Users can select their state(s) of interest, the variable(s) of interest, and apply an optional size of forest holdings filter. There are over 50 variables that can be summarized including landowners' concerns, demographics, forest holding characteristics, future intentions, leasing, forest management practices, collection of non-timber forest products, owner type, program participation, ownership objectives, and timber harvesting.

This tool can be accessed through at: http://fiatools.fs.fed.us/NWOS/tablemaker.jsp.

The latest estimate for family forest owners in Virginia is 402,000 (standard error +/- 58,000) with more than ½ of these (220,000 +/- 56,000) owning less than 10 acres of forestland. The 48,000 (+/-7,000) owners that own 50 or more acres control over 67% of the family-owned forest.