| Provisions of the 2002 Farm Bill have given Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) participants greater flexibility to implement mid-contract management activities that encourage wildlife habitat improvement and timber production. Quality Vegetation Management (QVM) is one mid-contract management technique that utilizes the selective herbicide Imazapyr and prescribed burning. Timber growth (Dq, total height, basal area, and volume) and breeding avian community responses (relative abundance, species richness, total conservation value, and species specific density) to the QVM treatment were evaluated in mid-rotation CRP loblolly pine plantations in two physiographic regions of Mississippi. By two years post-treatment, a shift in the breeding avian community composition from forest interior to early successional/pine grassland species was observed, and species specific density for the Northern cardinal, Indigo bunting, Pine warbler, and Eastern towhee were estimated. Although not significant, mean Dq and total height growth increment increases were slightly greater on treated plots than on control plots. |
