A comparison of planting and natural succession after a forest fire in the northern Sierra Nevada.
Abstract
Approx. 15 000 ha of mixed coniferous forest were burned on the northern California/Nevada border during the Donner Ridge fire in 1960. Vegetation was compared in 1975 on: (a) 15 ha allowed to follow a natural post-fire succession; and (b) 4 ha in which brush and dead trees were scraped and burned in 1962, and 1-yr-old Pinus jeffreyi seedlings planted at 400 trees/ha in 1965 with 2,4,5-T applied in 1971 and 1972. After thinning of (b) to 200 stems/ha, P. jeffreyi stem numbers were similar on (a) and (b), with shrubs and herbs greatly reduced on (b). Many of the shrubs killed on (b) are important browse for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), although the resulting increase in grass cover might be useful as range.