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A study of the effects of oak defoliation on understory plants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

A. Haile
A. Haile
Affiliation:
San Juan Experiment Station, at Hesperus, Colorado, U.S.A.
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Extract

A great portion of south-western Colorado and the other western states of the U.S.A. is covered with gambel oak (Quercus gambelii). Gambel oak was determined by Brown (1958) to be an important component of the mountain brush type in Colorado. It occurs in pure stands as well as in association with pinyon pine, juniper, ponderosa pine, aspen, and spruce on several million hectares. Ranges covered with gambel oak have relatively low grazing capacity and low availability of the understory vegetation for grazing animals. Jeffries (1965), studying the effect of gambel oak on range forage production, indicated that herbage yield under the oak canopy was less than that of grasses growing in the open. The restriction in forage growth under the oak is attributed to the shading effect rather than the competition for moisture. Therefore, removal of gambel oak would be likely to improve the ranges.

Type
Short Notes
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 102 , Issue 1 , February 1984 , pp. 247 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

Brown, H. E. (1958). Gambel oak in tho west central Colorado. Ecology 39, 317–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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