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Contrasting the effects of organic matter removal and soil compaction on root biomass of 9-year-old red oak, white oak, and shortleaf pine in a Missouri Ozark forest

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Nine-year old artificially regenerated red oak (Quercus rubra L.), white oak (Q. alba L.), and shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) trees were excavated from plot borders of a U.S. Forest Service long-term soil productivity study in the Carr Creek State Forest near Ellington, MO, to quantify treatment effects on above- and belowground tree biomass. The study consists of factorial combinations of soil compaction and organic matter removal treatments that are replicated three times. Seventy-two trees were removed from treatments containing two levels each of soil compaction (SC) and organic matter removal (OMR) with weed control (WC) and without weed control (NWC). Except for red oak, neither SC nor OMR alone affected root or shoot biomass production (weights) for trees in the study. However, biomass for both root and shoot were affected by interactions between SC and OMR with and without weed control. Regardless of the SC or OMR treatments, root biomass was higher with WC than NWC. Only the root:shoot ratio of red oak was affected by treatments, where it was higher for trees in the severe SC treatment than for trees in the no soil compaction treatment. Overall, measurements of above- and belowground biomass on plot border trees indicate that after nine growing seasons, site productivity has been affected more by the WC treatment than by SC or OMR.

Parent Publication

Citation

Ponder, Felix Jr. 2011. Contrasting the effects of organic matter removal and soil compaction on root biomass of 9-year-old red oak, white oak, and shortleaf pine in a Missouri Ozark forest. In: Fei, Songlin; Lhotka, John M.; Stringer, Jeffrey W.; Gottschalk, Kurt W.; Miller, Gary W., eds. Proceedings, 17th central hardwood forest conference; 2010 April 5-7; Lexington, KY; Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-78. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: 323-331.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/38069