Vegetational Changes and Management in the Cutover Longleaf Pine‐Slash Pine Area of the Gulf Coast

Abstract

In recent years, forest and range research technicians in the deep South have concentrated their work on the changes in vegetation and habitat which take place under specified land treatments. They have not been greatly concerned with refinements in ecological theory and terminology. Nevertheless, the concept of secondary succession is particularly useful in the South, where the response of plants to treatment may be rapid and drastic. At the very least, such knowledge will help avoid land i management practices that might be uneconomic or might lead to serious disturbance of the site or degradation of the plant cover. This paper presents selected examples of changes in plant cover and microenvironment in relation to timber cutting, burning, and grazing in the longleaf-slash pine belt of the Gulf Coastal Plain. The area contains about 27 million acres, of which some 21 million acres are forest land. The belt is 80 to 100 miles wide and stretches nearly 600 miles from Alabama and west Florida to east Texas. Precipitation is abundant, averaging from about 45 inches anuallv in east Texas to more than 60 inches in southern Alabama. The frost-free growing season extends from early March to late October, and winters generally are mild. Topography varies from pearly le-Tel in the flatwoods of the lower Coastal Plain to undulating in the pinehills of the upper Coastal Plain. Soils are mostly red and yellow lpodzolized lateritic tvpes that have dlevelopecl under the native pinehardwood forests; they are strongly acid and deficient in available calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and nitro(gen. On the better-drained soils, leaching is rapid and oxidation prevents mn-uch accumulation of organic matter. The subsoils are mostly fine sandy clay to heavy tough clay with slow to poor internal drainage. The forest found by, white explorers appeared fairly open, but actually was made up of moderatelv stocked stands of mature longleaf pine (Pil its paltstris AMill.), with loblollv pine (P. tauda L.) on many of the better sites. East of the Mississippi River, slash pine (P. elliotti