Ok, sorry about the lack of information in the last post. I got a short email from the director of the camp and didn't know many of the details myself. The story goes like this: The camp is a small Christian camp 10 miles north of Port Jervis with 270 acres of forest land (much of which had the oaks selectively harvested out in the early '70s). Recently, the camp started a forestry program with the intended goals of maintaining biodiversity while encouraging valuable hardwood growth. Small selective harvests are done on sections of the forest every few years for income, to encourage forest regeneration, and to select (to a degree) for more valuable species. All this is done in a non-invasive manner so that visitors to the camp are not affected.
The camp would like to know how to encourage oak regeneration in order to maintain the current oak-hickory stand for future generations. The camp would like to know if deer (which are very prevalent in the area) are surpressing oak regeneration. They approached the state for state funding for a deer exclosure, but the state forester maintains that shade, not just deer, are preventing the oaks from regenerating. Therefore, the state forester wants to clearcut at least 3 acres, roundup the area to kill all weeds, and plant acorns. The forester working with the camp wants only to install deer exclosures, claiming that the shade will only slow oak growth, not prevent it. The camp's objective is to maintain biodiversity and an oak-hickory stand. Even if 3 acres were clear cut and turned into a stand of oak, this method could not and would not be repeated on other sections of the camp, as it is quite invasive and disturbing for many camp visitors. However, the state forester claims that this is the only way to prevent white pine (which is also abundant) from taking over the whole forest. The idea of multiple smaller plots to compare oak growth in clear cut, thinned, and undisturbed areas (each with both a deer exclosure plot and a control plot) is currently being run by all parties involved. Several earlier responses mentioned troubles with oak regeneration across the northeast. What factors have been identified? Is deer browsing often the biggest cause, shade, something else (such as fire cycles), or a combination? Should the camp be looking at other methods of encouraging oak regeneration? Are there any ecological benefits or harm in keeping the forest as an oak-hickory forest and preventing it from becoming a white pine forest, as the state forester claims it will become naturally in the next few decades? Also, if no agreement can be reached (and therefore no state funding available for research), the camp is interested in an inexpensive study, such as a deer density study, as a quick easy method to find a way to help their oaks regenerate. (This would assume that if the deer density is too high, they are at least partly to blame for the lack of regeneration and therefore decreasing the local population would help oak regeneration.) Should this be looked at more seriously to begin with? Are there others potential hindrences to oak growth that could be inexpensively examined? I hope this has cleared things up a bit, and thanks for all the helpful comments so far, Philip Shirk
