Stand Level Growth and Survival Equations for Cutover Sites Loblolly Pine Plantations in the Mid-Gulf Region of Southern United States

Improved equations for predicting future dominant height, diameters, and number of surviving trees in a forest stand were developed for loblolly pine in the mid-Gulf region of southern United States using tree data from 115 stands across the region. The data were split into two sets and models were fitted on each data set using contemporary statistical modeling approaches in SAS® and R® software. Several models were fitted and compared. Fitted models were evaluated based on twoold cross validation techniques. The best equations had high fit indices and acceptable prediction standard errors. Model parameter estimates were significant at 5% significance level and exhibited logical model behavior. In the future, the system level performance of these equations will be evaluated after which the equations will be incorporated into the Cutover Sites Loblolly Pine growth and yield simulator developed and maintained by the Mississippi Forest and Wildlife Research Center