2Over the past several decades, federal incentive programs have encouraged the restoration of bottomland forests throughout the West Gulf Coastal Plain (WGCP) and the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV). Programs such as the Conservation Reserve (CRP) and Wetlands Reserve (WRP) Programs have been marginally successful (Stanturf et al. 2001). Foresters and contractors often follow conventional tree planting procedures that...

Data through age 26 from a well-designed study established in 1979 were analyzed with a repeated-measures analysis of variance approach to evaluate effects of site preparation treatments, complete competition control, and repeated fertilization on growth of slash pine (Pinus elliottii Engelm.) plantations on Spodosols and non-Spodosols in the flatwoods region of southern Georgia and northern Florida. Complete and sustained veg...

A simple idea is proposed to develop polymorphic base–age invariant models with multiple asymptotes: the asymptotic parameter is taken as the site-specific parameter (χ) and one of the other parameters is taken as dependent on χ as a simple power function. This approach is a constrained form of the generalized algebraic difference approach (GADA) and eliminates the requirement in previous GADA models to obtain an explicit solu...

Diameter distribution models are used extensively in forest growth and yield modeling. They are usually fitted with fixed area sample plot data but applied at the stand level, the unit of forest production planning. In this process, the distribution obtained at the plot level is assumed to be representative of that at the stand level. In other words, the distribution from each plot of the same stand is assumed (roughly) to be...

Two main approaches to estimating parameters of dominant height curves (derived by algebraic difference approach (ADA) and generalized ADA (GADA)), the dummy variable method and the difference approach (the error-in-variable (EIV) method along with ordinary least-squares (OLS) fits)are compared using second-rotation loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) data from a designed experiment. It was found that the EIV method consistently pe...

Traditionally, modeling of permanent plot individual tree survival has not considered the multiple sources of heterogeneity and correlation that may arise due to the multilevel data structure inherent in the design (e.g., clustering of trees within a plot). Permanent plots are sampled periodically; therefore, data are interval-censored because it is only known that a tree died between two successive measurement occasions. Here...

A large source of variability in yield predictions is due to estimation of future surviving trees per unit area. Previous whole-stand survival modeling efforts have concentrated on modeling the empirical survival curve. Modeling hazard functions, an approach to survival analysis commonly used in fields such as medicine and sociology, can be applicable to plantation survival estimation. We offer a generalized method for derivin...

Prediction models of foliage and branch biomass were derived based on the foliage distribution within the crown and the pipe model theory. Resulting models were fitted to data collected from intensively managed loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) plantations in the Lower Coastal Plain and Piedmont of Georgia. We found that diameter outside bark at the base of the live crown, crown height, and crown length are key predictors of foli...

Geometry-oriented methodology yielded a compatible taper-volume-weight system of models whose parameters were estimated using data from intensively managed loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) plantations in the lower coastal plain of Georgia. Two segments (separated at a stem ratio of 0.60 of total height) depicted taper, volume, and weight variations of the stems as well. The taper function defines stem taper as a proportion of th...

By integrating a variable-form differential equation for taper, a segmented-stem system of models involving a taper equation, merchantable volume equation, and total stem volume equation results. Through the constraints imposed on the coefficients of integration, the taper model is continuous at the inflection points, and all components in the system are compatible with each other. Models are derived for a bole with two inflec...