Impacts of Southern Oak Seedling Survival on Investment Returns in Mississippi

Abstract

Increasingly, landowners are establishing hardwood plantations to satisfy their land management goals. Unfortunately, little is known about how competition control affects initial seedling survival and subsequent investment returns for hardwood plantations. This study examines five alternative competition control regimes for southern oak establishment. The regimes include no site preparation, disking only, sub-soiling with rotary mowing, herbicides only, and herbicides with rotary mowing and sub-soiling. The analysis includes both before— and after-tax estimates of land expectation value (LEV) for comparing alternatives. Our results suggest that greater returns can be achieved for southern oak plantations in Mississippi during both good and bad rainfall years using herbicides only or herbicides with rotary mowing and sub-soiling for competition control. Applying intensive competition control during the first year yields after-tax LEVs of $577.64 to $691.66 per hectare despite precipitation levels. Not applying competition control yields after-tax LEVs from $84.43 to $502.06 per hectare.