Application of Clearcutting

Clearcutting has been the most widely recommended and applied regeneration method, albeit with mixed success, in the management of oak forests. It was most successfully applied in the drier ecosystems where oak reproduction naturally accumulated in the understory. Such forests occurred in the Missouri Ozarks and the oak-hickory forests of the Ohio Valley and Appalachians (Sander 1977, Ross et al. 1986). Clearcutting was less successful in regenerating oaks in the more mesic ecosystems of the Ohio Valley, Appalachians, and elsewhere (Beck and Hooper 1986, Gammon et al. 1960, Johnson 1976, Loftis 1983b). Failures were largely related to the inability of oak reproduction to accumulate in the heavily shaded understories of these forests (Johnson, 1993a).