Oak growth and acorn production in southern Appalachian mature forests and shelterwood with reserves regeneration harvests

Oaks (Quercus) are economically important, and their seed (acorns) a valuable food for many animals. Thus, forest managers must consider potential tradeoffs between oak growth acorn production. I used 13 years of dbh 17 trapping data on 195 trees five common eastern species to compare stand-level production closed canopy mature (M) recent shelterwood with reserves regeneration harvests (SW) (BA 27.3 ± 1.7 m2/ha in M; 5.1 + 0.8 SW at study establishment). also examined treatment differences growth, crown expansion, acorns/m2 the individual tree level, using subset paired (by dbh) trees. Despite times more BA M, average annual total production/ha was only double (58,199/ha M) that (27,298/ha), statistically greater M than oaks white oak. Stand- tree-level analyses indicated approximately 70% oaks. Crown area increases were (66%) northern red (74%), areas expanded disproportionately alone. In mixed-oak southern Appalachian forests, silvicultural treatments retaining 20–40 oaks/ha fully released crowns will likely yield 50–100% acorns produced/ha stands, as by residual increases. Retention multiple reduce likelihood crop failure, differs among years.