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Lower Middle Regeneration Experiment - Climate & Regeneration INGY 2014. Fred C. Martin WA Dept. Natural Resources Olympia, WA. Objectives. Evaluate planting versus natural regeneration with respect to survival, growth, and stocking.
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Lower Middle Regeneration Experiment - Climate & RegenerationINGY 2014 Fred C. Martin WA Dept. Natural Resources Olympia, WA
Objectives • Evaluate planting versus natural regeneration with respect to survival, growth, and stocking. • Evaluate survival, growth, and stocking on forest health, species diversity, stand structure, and yield. • Monitor survival and growth of residual over-story trees, and their impact on regeneration. • Evaluate effect of covariates (habitat type, understory vegetation, duff, CWD, etc.) on both regeneration and residual overstory trees. • Conduct annual measurements to provide validation for climate driven growth models.
Design • Randomized Complete Block (RBCD) • Two Habitat Types • GF/Clun • WH/Clun • Two Blocks of Each Habitat Type • GF-1 and GF-2 • WH-1 and WH-2 • Two Treatments • No Plant • Plant • Replications • Three reps of each treatment in each block • 2 habtyp X 2 blks X 2 tmnts X 3 reps = 24 exp units • Split plot design for each planted treatment • Three different species planted in each treatment
Replication Details • Rectangular 1/10th acre • Replications paired for treatment assignment • Divided into 25 1/250th acre tabulation cells • Each planted treatment cell contains one planted • Ponderosa pine (1-1, camp-run stock) • Western larch (2-0, camp-run stock) • Western white pine (Plug-1, 2nd generation) • Trees planted on equal area hexagonal grid
Climate Questions • Can temperature be measured with sufficient precision? • Is temperature correlated with productivity?
Climate Conclusions • Temperature can be measured with acceptable precision. • Temperature variation is correlated with productivity, although it is weak. • Next steps? • Humidity sensors adds 2013 • Assess the ability to make fine-scale temperature estimates? • Expand climate metrics, e.g. growind degree days, PET, etc.
Regeneration Questions • Is it true that regeneration is greater on the control than on the planted replications? • What is the trend of regeneration over time?
Regeneration Conclusions • Regeneration tends to be greater on the control than on the planted replications. • Regeneration is declining over time for seral species but increasing or constant for climax species. • Rates of mortality are greater on high versus low productivity. • Next steps. • Examine covariate effects on survival, (overstory, competing vegetation, CWD, etc.). • Assess rate of growth.