What Does Restoration Look Like? Shortleaf Pine at Roses Creek

Shortleaf Restoration from Lisa Jennings on Vimeo — part of a series of videos on restoration celebrating the mid-point of the Grandfather Restoration Project.

Forest restoration is something that is talked about a lot these days. But what does restoration really look like on the ground? 2016 marks the halfway point in the project. In the past 4 years, Forest Service managers have been working with a group of partners to improve forest health on over 27,000 acres. One of the key projects the Forest Service has led is the shortleaf pine restoration work at Roses Creek, near Morganton, NC.

Shortleaf pines are a southern yellow pine that grow at lower elevations on the rolling slopes where the foothills meet the Appalachian Mountains. Shortleaf pine forests contain not only shortleaf pines, but a mix of oak species that benefit wildlife as well as other southern yellow pines. The stands are typically open – more like a woodland than a dense forest – and contain a rich understory of grasses and forbs. Historically, shortleaf pine forests were common on the dry, south facing slopes of the Grandfather Ranger District. Today, they are scattered across only a small percentage of the district.

Past records show that this forest type supported a wide variety of plant and animal species. Shortleaf pine forests in the Southern Blue Ridge once supported rare species like red cockaded woodpecker as well game species like bobwhite quail. But, the forests were hit hard on several fronts. First, much of the forest was lost with land clearing – which was common on these rolling slopes in the early 1900s. Next came fire suppression – without frequent fire the fire-loving oaks and pines were overtaken by yellow poplars and maples. The final hit was the southern pine beetle outbreaks in the 1990s which swept through the area, killing many of the remaining shortleaf pines.

Partners discuss shortleaf pine restoration near Roses Creek (photo by Adam Warwick, TNC)

The Roses Creek shortleaf pine restoration site provides an opportunity for these pine forests to come back to life. Last year, the Forest Service brought in local loggers to do a restoration harvest. Select yellow pine and oak trees were left in the overstory to provide structure and a seed source. After the harvest, the Grandfather Ranger District fire staff conducted a prescribed fire to prepare the seed bed. Southern pine seeds germinate best where there is little leaf litter, and burning will knock back some of the competing trees and shrubs. The final step is planting shortleaf pine seedlings in between the remaining trees to add to the seed source from the few existing shortleaf pines.

The Roses Creek site is just one example of shortleaf pine restoration under the Grandfather Restoration Project. Managers are working to restore the system so that rare plants and animals will return to the area, and future generations will be able to enjoy the unique and beautiful shortleaf pine forests. 

GUEST POST: Controlled Burn Brings New Life

Guest Post by Owen Carson, Plant Ecologist, Equinox Environmental Consultation and Design Inc.

I have spent several days over the last two weeks hiking along Bark Camp Ridge through the Wilson Creek controlled burn as part of an invasive species control project along upper Wilson Creek.  I also had the opportunity last year to observe the pre-burn condition of the forest.  Through those successive visits I was able to see the full effect of the fire on the forest structure and how it has started to restore balance within the ecosystem.  Before the burn, the dense understory was dominated by ericaceous species such as mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), Catawba rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum), punctatum (Rhododendron carolinianum), blueberries (Vaccinium sp.), huckleberries (Gaylussacia sp.), and dog hobbles (Leucothoe sp.); the mid-story was crowded with Eastern white pine saplings (Pinus strobus).

Christmas Fern

After the fire swept through, the shrub layer on mid to upper slopes was reduced significantly, and that’s when I began to see an explosion of regeneration within the herbaceous layer.  First to pop up was a suite of ferns; bright green stems of bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum), New York fern (Thelypteris noveboracensis), and hay-scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) and robust, downy fiddleheads of Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) were in stark contrast with the charred ground.

Dwarf Violet Iris

Then came clumps of dwarf violet iris and dwarf crested iris (Iris verna and I. cristata), their nearly-fluorescent blossoms like splashes of paint.  Large clusters of gaywings (Polygala paucifolia), a relatively uncommon plant of intact acidic forests, began to show their bright pink flowers, stimulated by an increase in light to the forest floor.

Showy Orchid

Pink Lady’s Slipper

Last but not least the orchids made their appearance, notably showy orchids (Galearis spectabilis) and pink lady’s slipper (Cypripedium acaule), the latter being so stimulated by the fire that thousands of individual plants in various stages of flowering were observed.

Shortleaf Pine Seedling

On my last day out there, I stumbled across numerous emergent seedlings of the fire-dependent pitch pine (P. pungens), the cones of which require the heat of a fire to release their seeds and prepare them for germination.

Watching these transitions was quite an amazing sight, and a true testament to the benefits of prescribed fire in forest communities where it has been long-suppressed.

Burn Stats: Date – March 18, Size – 1240 Acres, Location – Wilson Creek Headwaters near Gragg, Purpose – Fuel Reduction and Restoration of Fire Adapted Ecosystems, Partners – US Forest Service, NC Forest Service, PatRick Environmental, Treatment – 5th Prescribed Burn

 

A Tale of Two Rare Plants

In the last month, I have had to pleasure of going out to the woods with the National Forests in North Carolina ecologist twice to help the recovery of two rare species on the Grandfather Ranger District with very different life histories.

First, we visited the Federally Listed Mountain Golden Heather (Hudsonia montana) at a high elevation site on the Grandfather Ranger District. Mountain Golden Heather, listed as Threatened in 1980, is endemic to the district where it is only known to occur in two sites. Golden Mountain Heather is a fire-adapted species that needs full sun and bare mineral soil to germinate. It is found on rocky, open ridges where lightning-strikes were historically common. Without fire, the species is quickly overtopped by taller shrubs and trees.

Unscathed Golden Mountain Heather after a wildfire

In 2007, an intense summer wildfire burned through one of the Golden Mountain Heather populations. Surveys following the fire found a 10 to 100-fold increase in the number of plants. The second population, however, has not seen the intense heat needed to clear competing growth in decades. Recently, the location was incorporated into a prescribed burn unit as part of the Grandfather Restoration Project. Under the guidance of US Fish and Wildlife Service and US Forest Service biologists, we went out to that site to open up the area ahead of the next prescribed burn. By simply removing select surrounding shrubs and pine trees, we increased the available habitat for the species and set it up for the prescribed burn planned for next winter. We targeted plants that were starting to overtop Golden Mountain Heather as well as those that were blocking wind-borne seed dispersal into nearby suitable habitat.

Mountain Golden Heather habitat after removing select shrubs and pines

Next, we visited the State Listed Endangered Northern Oconee Bells (Shortia galacifolia var. brevistyla) at a low elevation stream-side site on the Grandfather Ranger District. Found only in McDowell County, this rare plant has an even narrower range than Golden Mountain Heather, but a very different life history. Northern Oconee Bells is restricted to the moist slopes of steep ravines, where fire is naturally excluded. It requires shade, good drainage, and bare mineral soil to germinate. Bare mineral soil in these environments is created where the ground is too steep to hold leaf litter, but where Northern Oconee Bells can still find a small roothold.

Northern Oconee Bells in bloom

Unfortunately, Northern Oconee Bells has limited reproduction by seed in its natural environment. Although there is suitable habitat close-by, the species is limited to a small area of that available habitat. To help the population recover, the US Forest Service is working with a former chemistry professor from UNC who has extensively studied reproduction in Northern Oconee Bells. With a permit from the NC Department of Natural Resources, and working under the guidance of the National Forests in NC ecologist, he will collect a limited amount of seed from this population of Northern Oconee Bells this year. He will propagate the species at a nearby site and replant the seedlings in the suitable habitat upstream from the existing population in 3 years. With greater numbers of plants on the site, the species will be better protected from population loss.

Habitat of Northern Oconee Bells where seed collection will take place

We hope that these efforts will help to maintain viable populations of both the Golden Mountain Heather and Northern Oconee Bells into the future.

Rising from the ashes: Table Rock wildfire stimulates plant growth

The Grandfather Restoration Project recently teamed up with a local journalist for the Morganton, NC newspaper, The News Herald, for a follow up story on the Table Rock Wildfire that burned in the Linville Gorge Wilderness last November.

Grandfather Restoration Project Coordinator, Lisa Jennings inspects herbaceous growth 7 month after the Table Rock Wildfire (photo by Tyler Johnson, The News Herald)

The article highlights the beneficial effects of fire and the need for applying prescribed fire to restore the fire-adapted communities in the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area.

“Because there is less shrub coverage (following fires), there is a lot more sunlight coming in and that will allow more herbaceous growth and the sun’s energy to reach the ground level,” Josh Kelly of Western North Carolina Alliance said. “Most of the diversity in our temperate forest is herbaceous. We have 130 species of trees in this area, but we also have 1,500 species of herbaceous plants.”

View the article on the newspaper’s website here: Rising from the ashes: Table Rock wildfire stimulates plant growth