Sustainable forest production requires an understanding of the effects of site disturbance on tree growth and the consequences of soil amelioration and vegetation control practices. We assessed the impacts of biomass removals at harvest, soil compaction and tillage, and vegetation control on early growth of Douglas-fir in coastal Washington. Harvest treatments included removal of commercial bol...

Organic matter removal and soil compaction are two types of soil disturbance that occur during forest harvesting activities. Both of these types of disturbance have the potential to reduce the long-term productivity of all vegetation which grows on the site. Quantifying the effects of different levels or organic matter removal and soil compaction is one of the objectives of the LongTerm Soil Pr...

As farm machinery has become heavier, concern has grown about its direct effects on soil physical conditions and its indirect effects on crop yields and soil biota. To study the relationships between these parameters, non-grazed temporary grassland plots on a loamy sand soil were subjected to full-width load traffic with widely different loads (0, 4.5, 8.5 and 14.5 t) one to four times per year...

American chestnut is one of hundreds of plant species plagued by root rot caused by Phytophthora cinnamomi. Phytophthora root rot is thought to have contributed to chestnut dieback prior to the arrival of chestnut blight, and it may now present a serious limitation to establishment of blight-resistant hybrid chestnut. We manipulated soil compaction and moisture to evaluate the effect of soil ph...

ost sports and recreational turfs are subjected to traffic stresses. A hidden but very important component of traffic stress is soil compaction, which is defined as the pressing together of soil particles into more dense mass. Soil compaction tends to be greater in the upper 50 to 75 mm of the root zone profile. Proneness to soil compaction tends to be greater (a) in finer textured soils such a...

Soil response to timber harvest trafficking was similar for eroded soils in two locations of the Piedmont of Alabama. Pre-harvest and post-harvest data indicated compaction to be present to a depth of 40 cm as indicated by cone index measurements, with the most significant changes occurring in the upper 20 cm. The degree of spatial dependence differed among soil properties and varied by the sit...

Determining how anthropogenic disturbances affect site productivity through bioassays requires a complete understanding of both overstory and understory vegetation. This study was installed in 1997 to determine how soil compaction and intensive harvesting affected the inherent site productivity of pine stands on the western boundary of loblolly pine’s (Pinus taeda L.) natural range. We measured...

Dry density and water content are two important factors affecting the degree of soil compaction. Conventional methods such as the sand cone test and the plate load test are used to measure such properties for evaluating the degree of compaction and the stiffness of soil in the field. However, these tests are generally very time-consuming and are inherent with some errors depending on the operat...

In recent decades, degradation of ecosystem in the steppe region of the Inner Mongolia Plateau, especially in riparian floodplain wetlands, has become a significant ecological crisis. Not uncommonly, with the increasing of livestock in the Inner Mongolian steppe region, a riparian floodplain wetland is becoming a hotspot area of grazing for local herdsmen. Hence, it is essential to understand d...