This workshop, "After the Southern Pine Beetle--A Workshop to Discuss Options for Public Lands in the Southern Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau," was held January 21-22, 2004 in Murphy and Brasstown, NC. Goal for the workshop was to share issues and options on what to do with acres of public land killed by Southern Pine Beetle (SPB). The meeting was designed so that there was much discussion time to facilitate sharing between managers and researchers. Managers were encouraged to share success stories and barriers that researchers may not have been aware of. Researchers were encouraged to share what they know from years of experience, from their own research, and from other research. The intent was for managers to go away from the workshop with more options to use in treating a particular site, with knowledge of how to prepare the best case to withstand appeals (if likely), and with an understanding of how the public might view different treatment options. It was hoped that researchers would go away from the workshop with a better understanding of the extent of land affected by the SPB in these regions, and the day-to-day issues and limitations that managers face in trying to reforest or restore these areas. Areas of uncertainty were flagged as potentials for future research.
Target attendees were public land managers (federal and state) in the Southern Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau, and researchers who have an interest in and insights into what can be done and likely outcomes, including the human desires/perceptions of possible actions.
These links will take you down the page, where you can view the PowerPoint presentations and/or read notes on the discussion. The notes following the presentations were contributed by Nancy Herbert, USDA Forest Service. Please visit the USFS-Southern Research Station website for the SPB research unit for additional information.
Note: These PowerPoint presentations have been converted to PDF files. Some of these files are large and may take some time to load.
Overview of Consequences of the SPB-killed Pines in the Southern Appalachians and Cumberland Plateau was presented by Paul Merten and John Nowak, USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Protection.
Paul Merten was ill, but his PowerPoint presentation was given by John Nowak, also of the Forest Health Protection staff. John indicated that the forests most susceptible to attack by the southern pine beetle are pine stands, primarily loblolly, shortleaf, pitch, and Virginia pine. Dense or "overstocked" pine stands are particularly susceptible to attack by SPB. Those with large, mature sawtimber are more likely to be attacked. Forest stands that have been damaged by storms, fire, logging, or drought are also more likely to be attacked by SPB. Pine stands on sites with shallow soils, on ridges, or on dry, south-facing slopes are more susceptible to beetle attack.
Some of the immediate impacts associated with SPB-killed pine stands include:
In the recent Southern Pine Beetle Outbreak (1999-2003), over a million acres of pine forests were damaged or lost in five States, much of this in the Southern Appalachian Mountains and on the Cumberland Plateau. The estimated total dollar value of this timber killed by SPB was over $1.5 billion. See table (below) for details by State.
| State | Ownership | Acres Lost | Est. Economic Impact* |
| Tennessee | Federal Lands: State/Private Lands: |
68,000 230,000 |
$136.6 million $365.5 million |
| South Carolina | 15,000 183,000 |
$59.3 million $291.0 million |
|
| Alabama | Federal Lands: State/Private Lands: |
38,000 165,000 |
$85.0 million $167.1 million |
| Kentucky | Federal Lands: State/Private Lands: |
100,000 86,900 |
$190.0 million $53.7 million |
| North Carolina | Federal Lands: State/Private Lands: |
40,000 95,400 |
$90.0 million $66.0 million |
| Grand Total | 1,021,300 $1.504 billion |
||
| *represents the dollar value of the timber killed by SPB | |||
John Nowak discussed the Southern Pine Beetle Prevention and Restoration Program funded by the Southern Pine Beetle Initiative. This program is a region-wide program for State and Federal lands designed to help restore forests impacted by SPB and to prevent future SPB outbreaks in pine forests by reducing hazardous stand conditions. Restoration activities will include planting site-specific tree species, planting at appropriate densities, and encouraging mixed species stands. Prevention activities will include pre-commercial and non-commercial first thinnings, development of hazard rating systems, and writing management plans for landowners.
Field Trip to the Tusquitee Ranger District in and around Murphy, NC--After this introduction to the SPB issue in the Southern Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau, we headed to the field to get an idea of the extent of SPB-killed pines in the area around Murphy, NC. We visit eight sites where the extent of pine loss was different, where the species of pine lost are different with different implications for the likelihood of it happening again, where local limitations and constraints were be different. Rick Semingson, NFsNC, led the field trip.
Disturbance History in the Region and Examples of Large-scale Infrequent Disturbance was presented by Jim Vose, USDA Forest Service-Southern Research Station, Project Leader and Research Ecologist, Coweeta Hydrologic Lab.
Jim Vose presented an overview of the disturbance history in pine ecosystems in the Southern Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau. Vose showed a slide indicating the geographic range of five different pine species in the Southern Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau; we're in the middle of the range of shortleaf pine; at the edge of the range of the other four species (white pine, pitch pine, Virginia pine, and loblolly pine).
Characteristics of pine sites are areas of low nutrients, high light, and low competition, often due to the rocky, shallow soils. Typically "natural pine habitats" are on low-quality ridge sites, rocky outcrops, or former landslide areas. Often, pines grew on these sites from natural regeneration, but this required some sort of disturbance; often the disturbance was fire. There are quite a few sites on the landscape where pine COULD exist; these areas may or may not be in pine today based on past land use history and insect/disease history. Fire has been an important component of maintaining pine on these sites. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was extensive land clearing, farming, slash burning, and mining (for coal, copper, gold, mica). As the area became settled, farming expanded into the uplands, resulting in the clearing of large areas. With farming on steep slopes, much of the A-horizon of the soil was lost, resulting in poor soils with low nutrients. Logging was also a major disturbance of the region, often followed by severe fires in the early 1900s. After the early 1900s, many areas returned to forest cover on abandoned agricultural lands. Many of these sites were either planted back to pine or naturally regenerated to pine as a result of the disturbance history.
Jim Clark (Duke University) investigated pollen history in the Southern Appalachians and has found that pine was about 15 percent of the pollen in the region. But about the time of the first white settlement, pine pollen increases to about 30% of the pollen by the early 1900s. He also found evidence of a lot of fires (charcoal in the soils) in the period of white settlement.
Altered fire regimes in the Southern Appalachians: Fire had an important role to play and still has an important role to play in these forests. Early history shows a long period of low intensity/severity burning by native people. This period was followed by a short period of high intensity/severity burning at time of white settlement and logging. This was then followed by a period of fire exclusion, public land ownership and forest management. Now, these same lands are beginning to see reintroduction of fire into these systems.
The other "disturbance" has been the drought of the past 20 years (actually two periods of low precipitation in the region in the mid-1980s and the late 1990s-early 2000s). One of the consequences of this drought was that older pine stands with high tree density and lots of competition were susceptible to southern pine beetle (SPB) attack. The drought and mild winters increased their susceptibility to SPB attack. We're at a point for decisions as to what to do with these pine-killed stands; we could take action to move these stands back to pine (shortleaf or white pine) or, on many sites, we could shift these stands into being oak stands.
What happens if we do nothing? Data from the Coweeta Hydrologic Lab near Franklin, NC shows that once the pine is gone from sites, if there is no intervention, the pine probably won't come back. At Coweeta, most of these sites where nothing was done are now predominated by low-quality hardwoods with a heavy mountain laurel understory.
What should we do? We need to (1) Reduce wildfire risk with a fuel load reduction. While we’re doing this, we should try to create new stand conditions that have lower fire risk. (2) On some sites, we should restore the sites to pine hardwood communities that might be more resistant to SPB attacks in the future. All things being equal, if we want to maintain pines as part of the overall landscape, we should be regenerating these sites to native pines (shortleaf seems like a good choice). We should expect to conduct repeated cultural treatments to re-establish shortleaf pine. A single treatment will usually not suffice. While we’re doing this, we should be trying to restore/regenerate the co-occurring ground flora that would normally be found in shortleaf pine stands. And, we should manage these stands in such a way that we decrease their susceptibility to future SPB attack.
Where should we do it? First, we need to reduce fire risk--areas in the wildland urban interface, high-risk areas, etc. These sites are probably more obvious. But when we are considering the goal of restoring pine/hardwood communities, we should choose areas where pine was the native habitat, where repeated treatments would be practical, and we need to consider the likelihood of disturbance in the future (disturbance being needed to keep these sites in pine).
Discussion among attendees and the speaker--In our efforts to restore the Conasauga River, we tried to reintroduce fire into an ecosystem that hadn't been burned in many years. We were able to kill the white pine and some shortleaf pine came back after one fire, but the native understory has not yet returned. The grass species that we were trying to get back on the Conasauga site were little bluestem and related species. We plan to conduct repeated burns in these areas, and will plant with shortleaf pine. We have also been measuring water quality and soil quality throughout this restoration process. The good news is that we have not seen any increase in release of nutrients or sediment to the water after our burns. How often should we think about burning these sites? Some data suggests goal of every 3-5 years. Kent Evans offered that there are some good demonstration sites on the Conasauga that are available for tours to show the effects of reintroduction of fire and fire exclusion. Come take a look if you're ever in the area.
The issue about whether fires increase sedimentation to streams has been raised in the National Fire Plan. Some of the more severe western fires were so hot that the humus layer was removed; in these situations, sedimentation will increase. But, here in the East, if we keep our fires of lower intensity so this humus layer is maintained, water quality should not be negatively affected by fire.
In most of our stands, light burns won’t remove the overstory, because although the fire may kill the timber, they will often remain standing. We need to be able to evaluate sites to determine which ones are best to try to reintroduce fire and regenerate pine. We can use data from what we see on these sites today to help guide our choices.
Should we replace white pine plantations with white pine? You don’t see many white pine plantations today. At one time, it was thought that white pine might be resistant to SPB attack and thus they were planted about 30 years ago. That hasn’t proved true. Today, we need to consider a more scattered pine overstory, not so dense. Species choice is dependent on the management goal. Perhaps in some ecosystems, white pines might be more native (e.g., Highlands RD), but rarely would they be in pure stands.
What should be our goal for restoration? Back to pre-white settlement? Back to Native American times? Response to these questions was that we should use the pre-settlement vegetation as a “guide,” but use our own judgment in determining specific goals. Things have changed since pre-settlement times (soil loss from over farming and erosion, introduction of invasive species, etc) that require that we use judgment and let other management goals to guide our final goal for a particular site.
Exotic invasive plant species often like the better growing sites just like many of our native species do.
Today, we don’t have the large herds of bison and elk. Perhaps today, increased use of prescribed fire could take the place of some of these large herbivores.
Ecological capability is a good place to start in developing a plan for restoration, but then we have to factor in political and social acceptability. In the National Forest System, we can sometimes be accused of doing too little. Let’s let the ecology and our management goals be our guide, but let’s try to DO SOMETHING with many of these stands.
A PowerPoint presentation on Management Challenges was given by Dave Purser, USDA Forest Service-Southern Region, NEPA Coordinator, Planning Staff.
Many federal laws, State “Best Management Practices” (BMPs), agency rules, and regulations affect the land manager’s ability to manage public forest lands after a major loss like the recent southern pine beetle outbreak in the Southern Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau. One of the laws that affects the actions that a federal public land manager can take is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). As the Forest Service’s NEPA Specialist for the Southern Region, Dave Purser provided an overview of the way that NEPA is applied in the USDA Forest Service.
In applying NEPA to proposed actions in the National Forest System, there are two decision levels to consider: the Programmatic decisions (like Land and Resource Management Plans) and Site Specific decisions (projects like timber harvests, range fencing and trail construction).
The national forests do not normally make “Site Specific” decisions in the Forest Plans. The plan and supporting Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) are broad, programmatic documents. The same reasoning applies to the suggestion of doing a “programmatic Environmental Assessment (EA) for SPB site treatments.” Our EAs can be extensive, but they must be Site Specific. Therefore, we can only do broad EAs that cover several SPB site treatments, if they are specific enough to indicate which sites would be affected and the environmental consequences of the proposed treatments.
NEPA requires that we consider (analyze) and disclose EVERY significant effect on the environment. In the case of the EA, we consider POTENTIAL significant effects. The Forest Service also uses NEPA as a point to document compliance with the NFMA and other laws, regulation, and policy. The adequacy of our effects analyses are challenged through appeals and litigation.
NEPA says we must consider the environmental effects of a proposed action and disclose those environmental effects to the public. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) oversees NEPA. They have identified two routes (other than a formal EIS) for documenting compliance: Categorical Exclusions (CEs) and Environmental Assessments (EAs). CEs can be claimed when the proposed action falls into one of a very few specific categories of actions AND there are no extraordinary circumstances. Forest Service regulations outline the instances in which we can use a “categorical exclusion“ (CE).
Examples of categories covered by CEs: repair or maintenance of roads, trail, and landline boundaries. Application of herbicides, other than common pesticides used in campground maintenance, can not be covered by a CE. Environmental factors considered when evaluating whether there may be extraordinary circumstances include the following:
New “Categorical Exclusions” are perfect for SPB control--sanitation/suppression and salvage of dead timber. CEs are not subject to administrative appeal, so the process is streamlined.
An EA is prepared when a Categorical Exclusion is not appropriate, and you are uncertain whether to prepare an EIS. The analysis process for an EA is similar to the process used for an EIS: i.e., scoping, issue identification, alternatives, and effects analysis, but the focus is on determining if environmental effects are significant. An EA supports a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI).
Before we get into NEPA, we need to do pre-NEPA. The analysis process begins with a need or “problem” to be solved (in this case beetle-killed pine trees). We compare the existing condition at a site with the desired condition described in the forest plan. A general proposal is then created to address the problem. The proposal, alternatives and associated issues are identified in the scoping process. The effects analysis includes biological, economic and social effects. Remember that this is not a linear process. You will occasionally recycle from effects back to issues and alternatives. You may even alter the nature of the problem you are trying to address.
Although the recent southern pine beetle outbreak in the Southern Appalachians and Cumberland Plateau was sudden and very broad, we need to plan ahead to deal with the issue of what to do with all these acres. The task seems formidable, but it IS do-able. Managers have opportunities to propose actions to help restore these lands. And right now there is no court injunction or other special legal limitation to what we can do to manage these pine-beetle-killed lands. Administrative appeals are one avenue that the public use to express their disagreement or displeasure with a management decision. Expect administrative appeals, and allow time for these. If we make a mistake in planning for the project and are reversed in an administrative review, then we go back and make corrections or adjustments. What all this means is that we need to allow time for this process to work when we deal with the need to manage forests after major losses due to an insect/disease outbreak.
Dave reviewed some of the problems the Forest Service has seen in appeals:
In the future, Dave suggested that we will see benefits from the use of CEs in dealing with insect outbreaks. We will continue to see appeals to any actions that involve fire or use of herbicides. Expect it. We can address these and deal with them with good documentation of the proposed action and its impacts.
When we’re dealing with an emerging problem (like insect outbreak or fuel reduction in the wildland-urban interface), there are probably no pre-developed plans giving treatment priorities.
The recently passed Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 has some provisions that may be useful to us as we address the need to manage in and around insect outbreaks. Dave was not familiar with the details, but reviewed some of the provisions and suggested that this act should provide some funding and some relief from needing to provide all the details of full-blown NEPA when dealing with these situations.
Discussion among attendees and the speaker: With recently released DRAFT Forest Plans, what do we do with any actions we want to plan right now? Do we tie these in to the OLD Forest Plan or the DRAFT Forest Plans? You cannot reference the new plan until they are implemented, probably for another month. So if you’re doing NEPA now, you must refer to the old Forest Plans.
How does the National Fire Plan and the Healthy Forest Restoration Act address the issue of reducing some of the process gridlock when forests deal with NEPA while facing an emergency resource condition? The revised administrative appeal regulations have a provision for implementation of a project--responding to an emergency situation, now expanded to include economic considerations--during the normal stay of implementation during an appeal. The appeal regulations also permit notice and comment on a proposal before an EA is completed.
CEs associated with the National Fire Plan permit treatment of fuels by mechanical treatment on up to 1000 acres and prescribed burns of up to 4500 acres on qualifying sites. The HFRA replaces the administrative appeals process with a pre-decisional objections process for qualifying fuel reduction projects and limits the number of alternatives that must be considered in EAs in certain cases.
When we really feel we need to use an herbicide to treat a stand in which we are also planning to use prescribed burning, do we include both under one EA? Yes. You need to describe what you plan to do (even if you MIGHT not, include use of herbicide) and address it in the EA.
On the Bankhead NF, we have an approved EA (circa 1996) for treatment of SPB-killed sites. If we have a new SPB outbreak, can we use this old EA. How long are these good for? If the facts haven’t changed all that much (revised for new information, e.g. Indiana bats), then you can probably still use the old EA for a while.
How and when do you combine EA on SPB suppression and the treatment of the acres after the outbreak is over? If you try to put too much of the “treatment” items in with the suppression, you’re doing a lot of guessing of exactly where the actions will be done or what will be done where. Proposed actions are not site specific enough. Site prep is not an emergency, so you will have time to do another EA. Use the CE for the emergency and deal with the treatment EA later when you know the specific actions that you plan to take.
Can you be more specific as to how the new Healthy Forest Restoration Act may help streamline the process, easing the paperwork needed to address emergency situations like insect and disease infestations? A recent summary of the major points of the HFRA indicates that CEs may be possible for treatments of “not more than 1,000 acres...with a limit of 250,000 acres on the total number of acres excluded.” Watch for “updates” from the FS Washington office that describe how implementation of the Act is progressing.
For this year’s program of work, do we have planned actions to address these areas? How are the different national forests addressing the need to do EAs? Are you getting any funding for this work? The NFs in NC are expecting some funding to do EA on treatment of these beetle-killed acres and will begin this work. On the Bankhead NF, they plan to start site prep (roller drum chop) this year. They have a Forest Health EA in place for the Bankhead and therefore they don’t have a need to do a new EA. The Chattahoochee-Oconee has $300,000 to treat damaged stands this FY; they are doing a forest-wide herbicide EA to treat competing vegetation when planting hardwoods and pines. The Cherokee NF has had plans for growing season burns, but it’s been too wet the past couple years to get these done. They were using CEs for this work. The Daniel Boone NF has also been using a CE for planting and burning some minimal acres. They are preparing an EA for release of some advance regeneration.
Someone asked when the 2004 funding for treating these acres would be available. A representative from the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Health Protection staff said the money for treatment of these acres is on the way to national forests in the region.
Next, presentations on "Options for Management" were made by Brian Heath (NC Forest Service), Lynne Rieske-Kinney (University of Kentucky), Erik Berg (USFS, Bent Creek Experimental Forest), and Shi-Jean “Susana“ Sung (USFS, Athens Forestry Sciences Laboratory)
Brian Heath, NC Forest Service, Pest Control Forester gave a PowerPoint presentation on Examining Stands that have Experienced Beetle-caused Mortality.
When NC FS looks at a tract killed by SPB, they first ask “What will happen if nothing is done?” They have some cost-share funds available to reforest tracts of beetle-killed pines over 1 acre. Cost share is 40%. The tree planting costs can run from $70-90 per acre just for planting trees, or $50-175 for site preparation of the site. There are some limitations for site prep with steep lands, etc.
The NC Forest Service will use the SPB reforestation dollars to hire 13 SPB foresters in the State, and conduct a media campaign to increase public awareness of SPB prevention possibilities.
Brian then reviewed four different case studies of how they dealt with a variety of landowner objectives and situations. Often they replant with white pine on these sites. Often these landowners are interested in other than timber production goals. One landowner’s objectives were to improve wildlife habitat, maintain high water quality, and offer recreational opportunities. In sum, what the NC Forest Service does when working with a particular landowner is first understand the landowner’s objective, then evaluate what markets are available in the area, and develop a management plan that is consistent with sound management practices. What can be done on a particular site depends on the site potential of the land for growing trees. The final decision for what is to be done with a particular tract of land is made by the landowner after weighing the costs versus the benefits of various options for management.
Lynne Rieske-Kinney and Tom W. Coleman, Entomology Department, University of Kentucky, gave a presentation entitled After the southern pine beetle: Assessing the outcome of management options.
Lynne presented some information from two different research projects that deal with the impact of and recovery of forested ecosystems from SPB mortality.
1. Forest succession in southern pine beetle killed stands. The first study looks at how forest composition and structure has changed over time on an area on the Kisatchie Hills Wilderness Area, in western Louisiana and eastern Texas. The study area had a catastrophic SPB outbreak in mid-1980s. Two treatments were applied to different sections of the study area: no suppression, and cut and leave. Also a wildfire affected part of the area in 1987. In 2003, Lynne and her graduate student examined the herbaceous and woody plant communities in these stands with the goal of describing how they have changed over the past 17 years. They plan to map the changes in forest composition and structure of these stands over the next 20 years. They have not analyzed any data yet from their 2003 sampling, but they hope that the information they collect will be of interest to managers. They will have information on plant community ecology and dynamics, data on vegetation changes that may be of historic interest, and will develop predictions of management potential.
2. Evaluation of regeneration success and arthropod community dynamics in southern pine beetle killed stands. In this study, Lynne and her co-author, Tom Coleman, are monitoring natural and artificial regeneration at two sites on the Cumberland Plateau in Kentucky; both sites were in the oak/pine (shortleaf) forest type. During the SPB outbreak 1999-2002, SPB killed the pine trees in these stands. No suppression efforts were undertaken to try to reduce the extent of damage from SPB at the time. Public land managers are very concerned about loss of pine in this region because of little pine overall across the landscape. Working with the land managers, Lynne and Tom are testing the effectiveness of three regeneration treatments: natural regeneration (shortleaf pine), artificial regeneration with competition (i.e., no control measures taken), and artificial regeneration with no competition (i.e., competition removed). Shortleaf pine was planted in 10’ x 10’ spacing. Tom is looking at pine seedling survival and growth, and herbivore damage. He is also examining the abundance and seasonal activity of insects that might impact the new regeneration. While they do not have any data yet on success of various regeneration treatments, they do have some preliminary data on insect populations in the different treatments. The naturally regenerated stands appear to have more insects than the two artificially regenerated treatments, including more insects that are natural enemies of southern pine beetles and weevils that attack young pine seedlings. Only the family of bark beetles showed higher populations in one of the artificially regenerated stands. The researchers expect that these patterns of insect population will change over time as the new stand develops. They suggest that their research results will provide some clues as to how insect populations affect plant communities in these stands over time, how these insects affect the relative success of different regeneration strategies, and may provide managers with the ability to predict the likelihood of regeneration success in the future.
Erik Berg, USFS-Southern Research Station, Research Forester at Bent Creek Experimental Forest then gave his presentation on Predicting Regeneration in Southern Pine Beetle-killed Stands.
The question that Erik asked at the beginning of his talk was “How do we predict successful regeneration in mixed pine/hardwood stands that have experienced SPB-caused mortality?” He then proceeded to describe a system by which a forester or landowner could collect data on advanced regeneration in the understory of a mature stand and, after entering it into a computer model, predict the composition of the understory at canopy closure in the regenerated stand. Hardwood stands in the Southern Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau typically reach canopy closure at 7 to 10 years of age. Those tree seedlings that are to survive and become part of the next stand must attain dominant status at canopy closure. David Loftis, Project Leader at the Bent Creek Experimental Forest, has developed a multi-species regeneration model that predicts which species will attain dominance and make up the new stand. This model is designed for stands that will receive a heavy cut by reproduction methods such as clearcutting. Erik then described how this model might predict future arborescent composition after regeneration cutting of a white pine stand that suffered pine beetle mortality in 2000-2001.
Susana Sung, USFS-Southern Research Station, Research Plant Physiologist, Athens, GA, presented Artificial Regeneration of Oaks and Other Hardwoods: A Procedure for Rehabilitating Southern Pine Beetle Devastated Areas.
Susana presented information on the potential of artificial regeneration of northern red oak on some of the SPB-killed stands in the Southern Appalachians. She described the careful process of developing excellent oak seedlings for outplanting in these beetle-killed stands. The process (developed by Paul Kormanik, Susana, and their colleagues at the Athens Forestry Sciences Lab) involves careful seed collection and following a strict nursery protocol that produces northern red oak and white oak seedlings that have a high likelihood of survival when outplanted. One option for what to do with SPB-killed stands would be to increase the oak component of these stands. Planting with high quality northern red oak or white oak seedlings in the full sunlight of beetle-killed stands, can help regenerate these stands so that oak will be a major component of the new stand. Their results suggest that northern red oak seedlings grown under these strict nursery protocols and outplanted to forested areas where they receive ample sunlight can produce acorns at age eight. Susana recommends a 15 x 15 foot spacing when planting oak seedlings. Neither she nor Paul Kormanik recommend planting just ONE species of oak. If you want to plant oak seedlings, you must be prepared to conduct adequate site preparation before planting and use herbicides or mechanical treatments to control competing vegetation after planting.
Discussion: What herbicides work well to control the competing vegetation around the oak seedlings? Charlie Possee, silviculturist on the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, gave some recommendations. Contact him for details (cpossee@fs.fed.us).
Before the next scheduled presentation, the moderator invited Callie Schweitzer (USFS, Southern Research Station, Normal, AL) to give a short overview of a model that is being developed by Kyle Cunningham, graduate student at Mississippi State University called “Upland Hardwood Decision Model.” One of the first questions a land manager is faced with when dealing with mixed pine-hardwood stand in which the pine has been killed by SPB is “Are you going to manage the existing hardwood (or mixed) stand or are you going to regenerate the stand?” With the primary objective of producing quality sawtimber, the Upland Hardwood Decision Model will analyze some data collected on the site to help answer this question of whether to manage or regenerate.
Prevention Considerations was presented by Brian Strom, USFS-Southern Research Station, Southern Pine Beetle Research Unit, Research Entomologist.
Brian discussed options for helping to prevent attack by SPB. Because southern pine beetles have multiple generations per year, when these insects are in outbreak status, there are thousands of individuals around to kill a tree. He discussed the use of aggregation and spacing pheromones to attract or repel SPB, but neither has worked to control or prevent outbreaks. Traps have been demonstrated to attract SPB from an area of about 100 feet around the trap; there aren’t enough traps in the WORLD to control SPBs in outbreak status. Insecticides are an option for protecting individual trees. Recently, an insecticide called Onyx has been shown to be effective for at least six months. Its cost is uncertain, but application costs are typically high for insecticides, limiting their use to high-value trees in recreational areas, wildlife habitat, homeplaces, etc.
Different pine species differ in the amount of oleo-resin flow. Pines with low oleo-resin flow are more susceptible to attack by SPB. Research suggests that the desirable trait of producing greater resin flow (and thereby giving these trees some semblance of resistance to SPB attack) is a heritable trait. Research could be done to develop genetic lines of pines that had greater oleo-resin flow and, thus, were more resistant to SPB attack.
What can be done with silviculture to make a stand less susceptible to SPB attack? Reduce stem density of pine plantations. Ideal density for pine plantations is 70-100 sq ft/ac, but removing excess trees is limited by lack of market for small diameter pines.
On the other hand, if you’re in the middle of an SPB outbreak, almost any kind of stand disturbance in pine stands will make the stand more susceptible to attack. Brian included prescribed fire in this list of disturbances that could make a stand more susceptible while SPBs are in the area.
Next, John Waldron, Texas A&M University, Research Silviculturist (located in Asheville, NC) spoke.
John described his very new research to develop a landscape-scale model for restoration planning following SPB induced tree mortality. His work is on a large scale, and does not deal with planning restoration for an individual stand. His model uses an existing model, LANDIS that takes past and present information and combines it with information on how various changes would affect the area. John is working to incorporate the effect of biological agents (like SPB) on forests across the landscape. His long-range goal is to provide managers with knowledge of how best to restructure SPB-infested landscapes to make them more SPB resistant and still maintain ecologic functions.
Public Acceptance of Management was presented by Tom Holmes, USFS-Southern Research Station, Economics of Forest Protection Unit, Research Forester.
Restoration Ecology and Economics: Understanding what the public wants and how much it will cost. When we consider restoring forests that have pines killed by the southern pine beetle, the first question we must ask is “What is the restoration goal?” The answer to this question is a dialog that must include not only the ecologic implications, but public acceptance, values and attitudes, as well. Once we have determined the restoration goal (gives us a blue print), then this drives the development of a restoration plan. The economic costs of different restoration efforts will also affect the decision of which approach to take.
So, what might be the range of restoration goals for these lands killed by southern pine beetle? One common reason for ecosystem restoration is management for a specific species, perhaps a threatened or endangered species. Another restoration goal might be ecosystem function (e.g., maintaining water flow, storing carbon, maintaining biodiversity, etc.). What about ecosystem services such as providing clean air and water, maintaining soil, etc.? These are service that benefit people directly. A recent survey of the public using the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest indicated that highest public values for national forests were providing ecosystem services and maintaining processes, such as clean water, providing oxygen, protecting endangered species, and regulating climate. Preferences were somewhat weaker for non-consumptive goods, such as swimming, primitive camping, wilderness, and landscape photography. Preferences were weakest for the forest commodity production and non-market consumptive uses (e.g., hunting and fishing). Tom concluded that the public is very sophisticated in that it had strong preferences for restoration goals that maintained ecosystem services and processes, but these preferences vary across different segments of the public. He suggested that a major point in deciding what to do with these lands is that you should engage the public in designing restoration goals for these lands where the standing timber has been killed by SPB. Matching restoration costs with the benefits can help prioritize what to do on which stands.
The final discussion session, "Plans for the Future," was led by Nancy Herbert, USFS-Southern Research Station; Assistant Station Director, Don Tomczak, USFS-Southern Region, Regional Silviculturist; and John Nowak, USFS-Southern Region, Forest Health Protection Specialist.
Nancy invited Don Tomczak and John Nowak to join her at the microphone to lead a discussion of “Where do we go from here?” While there was some good discussion at this meeting (both in the field and in the meeting room), there were still many unresolved questions about how to manage or restore beetle-killed forests. Nancy called on the attendees for ideas of what should be some “next steps.”
Ron Stephens (Forest Silviculturist on the Chattahoochee-Oconee NF) reminded the group that the national forests will soon be able to collect their vegetation data using the national program called FSVeg. When this happens, the data stored in FSVeg will be available for use by researchers. If the national forest silviculturists and the researchers could get together BEFORE this data is collected to determine what types of analyses would be useful to both groups, then the forest silviculturists could agree on what data would be collected, and how it would be collected.
There was little further discussion, so Nancy Herbert invited anyone who wanted to be part of a small technical group to move this process of information exchange forward to see her after the meeting. She also volunteered to send notes out from the meeting to all attendees and to put copies of the PowerPoint presentations of the speaker up on a website (and send the URL for that website to all attendees).
Don Tomczak said that we need to manage the public forests for a range of conditions and variety of forest ecosystems. Many of these aging forests are more likely to be affected by insects and diseases in the future. We should not be focusing just on getting pine plantations back; mixed pine-hardwood stands may have significant forest health benefits over pure pine stands. On the technical side, we need to be sharing information on what’s working and what’s not working well. Herbicides, prescribed fire, and mechanical treatments should all be given consideration as means of restoring these sites. We also need to keep in mind that we now have some categorical exclusions in place to allow more timely harvesting in response to insect and disease outbreaks. John Nowak supported Don’s ideas and promised support from Forest Health Protection to help make forest restoration after the SPB possible through the funding provided for this purpose. He also offered to help with information sharing among the folks trying to restore these sites.
Thanks to the staff at the Tusquitee Ranger District (part of the Nantahala National Forest in western NC) for their help in hosting the workshop and leading the field trip. And thanks to the folks at the Brasstown Community Center for use of the facilities and a good meal.