Methods of Reforestation in Southern Louisiana

History

By 1921, the rich pine forests of southern Louisiana reached a crisis state, largely exhausted by the timber and paper mill industries. In an effort to revive the forest, for both commercial and ecological interests, the Southern and Appalachian Forest Experiment Station of New Orleans hired Philip C. Wakely, a recent graduate of the forestry service at Cornell University. Wakely, through years of research, developed the seed, seedling and tree planting technology that is still used today in southern Louisiana re-forestry efforts.

The Office of Forestry in southern Louisiana also actively participates in a tree improvement program. With this program, agents are sent out into forests to find the best specimens from which to take cuttings. Specimens are judged on a variety of criteria, including trunk size, the angle of branches and resistance to insect pests and disease. Cuttings are then grafted onto stock seedlings, which begin to produce viable seeds after six to ten years. In this way, the Office of Forestry ensures that land is reforested with seedlings that are best fit to survive and grow into mature forests.

One of the ways in which land is reforested in southern Louisiana is through the planting of tree seedlings. Trees are grown from seed in special greenhouses. In the state of Louisiana, three such nurseries currently produce 25 million pine and three to four million hardwood seedlings each year. Seedlings are sold at cost to Louisiana landowners for reforestation purposes. The seedlings have a better chance of survival once they have made it through the first few years of growth in a greenhouse, making this an effective way to reforest land, especially in southern Louisiana.

A non-invasive way of reforesting land is to allow the process of succession to naturally occur. Succession is the process by which plant groups grow at different rates, replacing each other with more mature plant communities until finally a mature system is formed. In southern Louisiana, the land that has been cleared of forest for agriculture or other purposes is in a secondary succession stage. This stage typically comprises grasses. As succession continues, shrubs will be the next plant community to emerge. The shrubs attract wildlife, such as birds and small mammals, which begin to distribute seeds of other plants. Fast growing trees are the next plant community to arise, followed by a mature hardwood forest. While reforestation by natural succession takes longer than planned reforestation techniques, it has the benefit of being much less expensive.