Effects of Prescribed Burning on Soil Carbon and Nitrogen in Pine Forests of the Southern Coastal Plain.
Table: Effects of prescribed burning on soil carbon and nitrogen in pine forests of the Southern Coastal Plain.
| carbon | nitrogen | ||||||
| soil layer \xe2\x86\x93 | burn interval \xe2\x86\x92 | one year | more than one year | unburned | one year | more than one year | unburned |
| forest floor | % of unburned \xe2\x86\x92 | 17-38 | 34-88 | - | 5-38 | 12-74 | - |
| mass(kg/hectare) \xe2\x86\x92 | 2,500-5,000 | 2,500-9,000 | 7,000 \xe2\x80\x93 15,000 | 7-156 | 27-300 | 131-408 | |
| mineral soil | % of unburned \xe2\x86\x92 | 93-120 | 95-133 | - | 92-127 | 80-117 | - |
| total | % of unburned \xe2\x86\x92 | 74-97 | 86-108 | - | 86-106 | 72-100 | - |
The above table is based on data of McKee (1982) and Binkley et al. (1992) for coastal plain sites in Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina. Prescription burning treatments were in place for eight to sixty-five years at times of sampling. Measurements were made once per site and reflect the season of measurement as well as the time elapsed since the last fire. One site (Louisiana) from McKee (1982) was omitted due to lack of replication and the occurrence of wildfire on the \xe2\x80\x9cunburned\xe2\x80\x9d plot. Some, but not all, of the treatment differences shown here were statistically significant.
Forest floor masses of C and N are from McKee (1982) and include the entire forest floor (Oa + Oe + Oi layers). The maximum sampling depth for mineral soils varied between 10 and 20 cm below the mineral soil surface. Accordingly, masses of C and N by treatment for mineral soil are not presented here. For the top 10 cm of mineral soil, typical masses of C and N across all burning regimes are 25,000 \xe2\x80\x93 45,000 kg per hectare and 1000-1400 kg per hectare, respectively.
Organic matter levels in McKee (1982) were converted to C using the assumption that organic matter is 50% C by mass.
