Clearcutting and other regeneration options for upland hardwoods

Upland hardwoods may be naturally regenerated by harvest cutting methods that range from clearcutting and shelterwood to group selection. The method will succeed if: (1) the seeds, seedlings, or sproutable stems for a new stand are in place prior to final harvest, (2) these stems are released from the overstory in a timely manner, and (3) competition from tolerant, noncommercial understory species is sufficiently reduced. Only a few of the commercially desirable species, mainly yellow-poplar, sweet birch, and cherry develop successfully from seed after the final harvest cut. Most other species, including the oaks, depend heavily on advance seedlings and sprouts from small trees. Because of past stand treatment, mostly mistreatment, advance seedlings and sproutable stumps are present in many upland oak stands on medium or lower quality oak sites and acceptable species composition has been obtained by a variety of methods. On high-quality cove sites species advance seedlings and sproutable stumps occur only sporadically and reproduction has been dominated by aggressive species such as yellow-poplar in many instances regardless of the method used. Future regeneration of mature, well-stocked stands, on the cove sites in particular, will require more effort to develop advance reproduction by methods such as shelterwood cutting which are carefully tailored to the needs of the desired species.

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