Radial growth of hardwoods following the 1998 ice storm in New Hampshire and Maine

C. Shortle Abstract: Ice storms and resulting injury to tree crowns occur frequently En North America, Reaction of land managers to injury caused by the regional ice storm of January 1998 had the potential to accelerate the harvesting of northern hardwoods due to concern about [he future loss of wood production by injured trees. To assess the effect of oh~s stom on radial stem growth, increment cores were collected from northern hardwood trees categorized by crown injury classes. For a total of 347 surviving canopy dominant and subdominant trees, a radial growth index was calculated (mean annual increment for 199&2000 divided by the mean annual increment for 1995-1997). Sugar maple (Acer sacchrum Marsh.), yellow birch (Betula alleghniertsi ~ Britt.), white ash (Fmxinus aomericana L.), and red maple (Acer rubrum L.) categorized in injury class A (mown loss of less than one-halo had mean growth index values of ap-proximately 1.0, indicating no loss of mean radial growth after 3 years * For injury class B (crown loss of one-half to three-quarters) and class C (crown loss greater than three-quarters), growth index values significantly decreased for sugar maple, yellow birch, and red maple. For whlte ash, growth index values of classes B and C were not signifi-cantly different from those of class A trees. Growth index values of A, sacckarm and A. rubrum in injufy class C were the lowest of those measured. These results indicated that the severity of growth toss due to crown injury depends on tree species and crown replacement as well as the extent of crown loss