Southern Research Station Headquarters - Asheville, NC
![[Images] Five photos of different landscape](/images/imstr1.jpg "[Images] Five photos of different landscape")
Issue 13
Scull Shoals
The 4,500-acre Scull Shoals Experimental Forest (Scull Shoals) near Athens, GA, has been the site of silvicultural research studies since the 1930s. In 1959, when the experimental forest was officially designated part of the Oconee National Forest, studies were started on the role of fire in silviculture, the development of wildlife habitat, and the regeneration of the hardwood ecosystems of the southern Piedmont.
The ruins of Scull Shoals, once a major town between Atlanta and Savannah, are also on the site. Settled in 1784 on the Oconee River, at its height Scull Shoals included grist mills, sawmills, cotton gins, and a textile mill that employed over 600 people. The textile mill flourished until destroyed by a flood in 1887 that covered the town for 4 days and destroyed it economically. What was left became part of the Scull Shoals Experimental Forest in 1936, and the Oconee National Forest in 1959. It is now an historic recreation area on the Oconee National Forest.
Research at Scull Shoals, primarily from the 1960s and 1970s, provided a better understanding of littleleaf disease, which is caused by a complex of factors including the fungus Phytophthora cinnamomi, low soil nitrogen, and poor internal soil drainage. Littleleaf disease affects the shortleaf pines growing on the badly eroded land that once typified the southern Piedmont.
The feasibility of establishing intensively managed, short-rotation woody crop systems to produce fiber was also demonstrated by research at Scull Shoals in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In different locations across the United States, these types of systems are now being used to produce biofuels for local energy uses.
