Excerpt from Proceedings of the Alaska Forest Soil Productivity Workshop: Anchorage, Alaska, April 28-30, 1987 Abstract: Research within the School of Agriculture and Land Resources Management, University of Alaska Fairbanks, includes studies directed toward assessing, monitoring, enhancing, and maintaining forest soil productivity. Examples of this research are studies of nutrient dynamics, soil biology, computer simulation models, soil characterization and classification, forest management, and forest growth and yield. The research is supported by state and federal appropriations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The main portion of this paper describes the implementation of the British Columbia Long-term Soil Productivity project, which is based on a comprehensive model that will provide information about the relative effects of soil compaction and the removal of site organic matter on tree growth. It reviews the history of the project and the scientific basis for the project studies, then describes the project sites and plot layouts, harvesting and site treatment methods, conifer regeneration studies, and three ancillary studies on the following subjects: ectomycorrhizal fungi, root development, and seedling nutrition; soil fauna; and soil atmosphere.

"Forests, soils and their relationships were studied along a toposequence over an elevation range from 161 meters to 213 meters near Smith Lake on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, Fairbanks, Alaska. Forest cover type and understory species composition change along the slope from top to bottom and are related to temperature and moisture. Aspen occurs on the ridge top. Paper birch grows best on the shoulder. White spruce, which has the greatest commercial value, is the only species present on all slope positions; it grows best on shoulder and back slopes. Black spruce dominates on the wet and cold top slope that has a thick organic layer. Organic horizon depth increases, whereas rooting depth decreases, along the toposequence from the shoulder slope to the top slope. Soil textures are mainly silt loam and fine sandy loam with slightly acidic reactions in the surface mineral horizons to calcareous reactions in subsoils. Organic carbon is concentrated in the surface organic horizons and the surface mineral horizons and decreases drastically in the subsurface horizons. This thesis was an exploratory effort; although soil properties along the Smith Lake toposequence cannot be used as quantitative predictors of forest productivity, the qualitative results provide a basis for matching species to site"--Leaf iii.