Using Prescribed Fire in the Silviculture of Virginia Pine

Virginia pine (Pinus virginiana Mill.) is widely distributed in the northern Piedmont and the foothills and lower elevations of the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains. It is also found on the western edge of the Coastal Plain in New Jersey and New York.

Extreme care needs to be taken when using prescribed fire in Virginia pine stands. It has a thin bark and is easily damaged or killed by fire. Fire should not be used for seedbed preparation or hardwood control. The only time the use of fire can be considered would be after a harvest cut under even-aged management. Clearcutting is best adapted to this species silvical characteristics. Clearcutting allows full sunlight to reach the new trees, produces a stand of the same age and height that protects the trees from windthrow, and allows the use of fire in site preparation. Fire may also be used with strip cutting a stand if the strips are 100- to 400-feet wide. Slash on these cut areas can be burned and hardwood control measures applied. Seedbed preparation using logging equipment or fire is applied to the harvested strips. Seed is supplied by trees in the adjacent uncut strips. After 3 to 10 years the uncut areas are harvested. Regeneration of the uncut strips is more difficult. A light fire can be used to prepare a seedbed in the uncut strip but damage to residual trees may negate the benefit of the fire if mortality results.

For additional information on the use of prescribed fire in the silviculture of Virginia pine, see:

• Managing Virginia Pine, from the manual Silvicultural Systems for the Major Forest Types of the United States (Burns 1983), provides additional information on how prescribed fire can be used in combination with different silvicultural systems to manage Virginia pine.
• Silvics of Virginia Pine, from the on-line Silvics of North America (Burns and Honkala 1990), provides information on Virginia pines habitat (range, climate, soils, topography, associations), life history (reproduction and early growth, sapling and pole stages to maturity); special uses; and genetics
• Pinus virginiana, from the on-line Fire Effects Information System, provides a review of the fire ecology, fire effects and management considerations of Virginia pine.