Been out assessing the ice damaged timber stands. The photograph below shows the damage to a 21 year-old longleaf pine stand. This stand is critical future forage for the red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW). Most of the damage occurred on newly thinned young longleaf pine stands. These stands just did not fair very well without their supporting neighbors. Many of the trees in this stand actually just fell over; however, there were many snapped stems as well. The stand, prior to Ice Storm, had 70 square feet of basal area per acre and 192 trees/acre. After the storm, it had 23 square feet of basal area per acre and 56 trees/acre. The RCW require a basal area range between 40-70 square feet per acre. Ran a future simulation and determined that this stand only grows to 33 square feet of basal area per acre at year 70. Factored in increment growth and open grown mortality at 1.9% per year. This is not very good. Probably will salavage the damaged trees and interplant seedlings to supplement lost trees.
