Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Maine Woodlands
Publisher
Maine Woodland Owners
Publication Date
2024
Publisher location
Augusta, Maine
Issue Number
10
Volume Number
49
Abstract/ Summary
Blacks Grove, a 40-acre woodland in Mariaville, Maine, was purchased in 2013 by the authors to create a working laboratory in practical silviculture. The property underwent a partial harvest in 2015 that reduced the inventory by 32% to 19.9 cords per acre. Post-harvest efforts focused on controlling a dense understory of beech saplings and addressing raspberry cover in harvest gaps with glyphosate herbicide. Enrichment planting of white pine and red oak seedlings was also conducted. Long-term monitoring using permanent inventory plots installed in 2016 tracks growth, mortality, and financial returns. The current growing stock is dominated by hemlock, which constitutes 57% of the volume but only 39% of the total value. Over the eight years following the harvest, sapling regeneration showed a generally positive response for most species except beech. Over the first four years post-harvest, the woodlot showed a gross growth of 0.58 cords per acre per year, but mortality of 0.15 cords per acre per year resulted in a net growth of 0.43 cords per acre per year. More recently, net growth improved to 0.56 cords per acre per year. Notably, mortality has offset 26% of the gross growth, amounting to about eight cords per year across the property. Financial return on the residual growing stock has been 2.6%.
Repository Citation
Seymour, Robert S. and Leahy, Jessica E., "Blacks Grove: Eight-Year Case Study of a Managed Woodlot in Mariaville, Maine" (2024). Silviculture and Management of Maine’s Forests. 3.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/silviculture/3
Version
publisher's version of the published document
