Short Communication
Gutierrez-Castillo A
Tian N*
Recieved on: 2023-05-08, Accepted on: 2023-07-06, Published on: 2023-07-13
Bottomland hardwood (BLH) forests have shown high potential for producing climate-smart commodities including C sequestration and storage, wood products, wildlife, and other ecosystem services. Among the most important tree species in BLHs are red oaks, which provide abundant food for wildlife, and lumber and veneer for the production of high-quality furniture, flooring, wine barrels, and other products. Mast production of bottomland oaks is desired by managers for enhancing wildlife habitat and high-quality wood. In addition, as natural and primary hardwood forests become increasingly scarce and are protected for conservation purposes, a dominant amount of hardwood timber has come from second growth and plantations. Plantations will become increasingly important in timber supply and producing other climate-smart commodities/services (i.e., C sequestration) in the near future. This calls for the exploration of forest growth models that help estimate, with high accuracy, the growth and stem profile of BLH plantations, as well as to test their capacity to adapt to the projected climate conditions. Our main findings revealed that there was no significant difference in diameter at breast height for trees within plantations in our study, whereas a significant difference was observed in total height, wood density, and stem profile. Red oak species are also well suited to implement more conservation/restoration practices (i.e., tree planting) to conserve the BLH forests even with the possibly increasing temperature and precipitation.