Natural Resources
Conservation Service
Ecological site F146XY084ME
Silty
Accessed: 05/04/2024
General information
Provisional. A provisional ecological site description has undergone quality control and quality assurance review. It contains a working state and transition model and enough information to identify the ecological site.
Ecological site concept
The soils of this site are deep, silty loams with very few rock fragments. These soils formed in lakebed sediments in areas where glacial meltwater once collected. As glacial lakes dried out, some areas were bisected by streams and rivers which persist today. In these cases, this site occurs on stream terraces. This site is no longer flooded or ponded, and the former lakebeds are now dry and moderately well to well drained.
Plant communities are conifer-dominated mixedwood forests. Common conifer species on the site are white pine, red spruce, balsam fir, hemlock, and northern white cedar. Hardwood species are red maple, yellow birch, white birch, bigtooth aspen, and black cherry.
Abandoned cropland may transition to pine, spruce-fir, or reference conifer-dominated mixedwood forests.
This site is subject to logging, wind, insects and disease, and other natural and human disturbances resulting in a variety of alternative states.
When managed for timber production, several different ecological states are possible. The pine forest state, reference conifer-dominated mixedwood state, and spruce-fir state are managed to maintain dominance of their respective timber species, and to facilitate profitable harvests along predictable timelines. Hemlock forests may also result from logging practices, though these are typically less-desirable and may result from selective harvest of more valuable species, leaving the hemlock behind. As hemlock increases on the site, it inhibits the establishment of other species by shading, reducing soil moisture availability to other plants, and especially by acidifying the soil.
With sufficient economic inputs, any of the states that occur on this site may transition from one to another, however, due to cost limitations, forests are typically managed for whatever timber species are currently present on the site.
Table 1. Dominant plant species
Tree |
Not specified |
---|---|
Shrub |
Not specified |
Herbaceous |
Not specified |
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