Summer 2005

What Can Experimental Forests Teach Us About Longleaf Pine Restoration?

Since the 1920s, the USDA Forest Service has maintained a system of experimental forests to test hypotheses and collect longterm data about the ecological effects of fire, grazing, insect infestations, air pollution, and other disturbances. In the South, researchers from Federal agencies and universities use 15 active experimental forests for studies ranging from the practices needed to maintain healthy forests, to the water fi ltration functions of forests, to habitat restoration for endangered species.

Experimental forests are some of the few places in the United States where longterm data are collected about forests and how they change over time. These living laboratories also serve as demonstration sites where cooperators and landowners can see the results of different forest management options.

In 1935, the USDA Forest Service established the 7,500-acre Palustris Experimental Forest as a research study plot on the Kisatchie National Forest. The Palustris was representative of the surrounding territory in central and southwestern Louisiana and east Texas: it had once supported magnificent longleaf pine stands, many of which were destroyed by railroad and cable logging in the early part of the century. Later attempts to farm on the shallow, poorly drained soil had failed, and many of the longleaf stands were left barren or invaded by scrub oaks and other undesirable hardwoods.(...continued...)