Barbara Crane

US Forest Service | FS · Southern Region Forest Management

Table Mountain pine (Pinus pungens Lamb.) is an imperiled tree species endemic to the southern and central Appalachian Mountains. Generally reliant on fire for regeneration, its fragmented but widespread distribution has declined in recent decades. We quantified the genetic diversity of 26 populations across the range of the species using data from...

In 1992, a long-term partnership was initiated among three parties: (1) The University of Tennessee’s Tree Improvement Program (UT-TIP); (2) the Southern Region, Genetic Resources Program (Region 8) of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); and (3) the Southern Research Station (SRS) of the Forest Service. Personnel from these p...

In this report, we provide guidelines and administrative procedures to conduct artifical regeneration activities for upland oak (Quercus) species. The information provided is intended to assist silviculturists and foresters in the Southern Region (Region 8) of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, but many of the management guidelines...

Between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, the USDA Forest Service installed 155 shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) progeny tests in national forests across the Southern Region of the United States. Using control-pollinated crosses from the Mount Ida Seed Orchard, 84 of these progeny tests were established in the Ouachita and Ozark-St. Francis...

The 35th biennial Southern Forest Tree Improvement Conference (SFTIC) was held on the 4th and 5th day of June 2019, in Lexington, KY, USA. The theme of the conference was “Genetics and improvement of forest health and productivity”. Plenary speakers detailed significant progress in understanding forest tree genomes, identifying candidate genes for...

Reforestation and restoration efforts have traditionally relied on “local” seed sources as planting stock. The term “local” has different meanings in different locales, since no single set of seed-collection zones has yet been widely adopted across the eastern United States. Given concerns about mitigating the effects of climate change, forest mana...

Insect and disease infestations pose major threats to several North American forest tree species. Scientists and managers from throughout the United States Forest Service developed a conservation priority-setting framework for forest tree species at risk from insects and disease and other threats. The Project CAPTURE (Conservation Assessment and Pr...

Current guidance on sourcing native plants to support ecosystem function focuses on the high risk of failure when unsuitable material is used in ecological restoration. However, there is growing recognition that risks may be lower and rewards higher at highly disturbed sites isolated from remnant populations, especially when considering support for...

Longleaf pine is known as an unpredictable seed producer, with adequate or better seed crops occurring once every 5 years or longer. However, in the spring before seed fall, good cone crops can be predicted by visually counting green cones in the canopy, which by then are large enough to be seen, especially when binoculars of suitable power are use...

Climate change is one of several threats that will increase the likelihood that forest tree species could experience population-level extirpation or species-level extinction. Scientists and managers from throughout the United States Forest Service have cooperated to develop a framework for conservation priority-setting assessments of forest tree sp...

Shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) is an important commercial timber resource and forest ecosystem component in the southeastern USA. The species occurs in mainly drier sites as an early- to mid-successional species, is fire-adapted, and it plays an important role in the fire ecology of the region. However, shortleaf pine genetics are not well-s...

Shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) is an important conifer in much of the southeastern United States. However, the species and its associated ecosystems are in decline, and recent evidence about hybridization with loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) raises concerns that the species may be at risk of further losses due to introgression. Although short...

Table Mountain pine (Pinus pungens Lambert) was historically a widespread pine species native to the central and southern Appalachian Mountains, but, in recent decades, its current natural distribution has been reduced to less than 30,000 ac (12,000 ha). Reasons for this decline include wildfire suppression programs of the early 20th century, south...

American chestnut restoration depends on a multitude of biological, administrative, and technological factors. Germplasm traditionally bred for resistance to the chestnut blight disease caused by the exotic pathogen Cryphonectria parasitica has been deployed on national forests in the Eastern and Southern Regions of the National Forest System (NFS)...

An exotic fungus, the chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica Murr. Barr), decimated the American chestnut tree (Castanea dentata Marsh. Borkh.) throughout eastern North America in the first half of the 20th century. The United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (FS), The University of Tennessee, and The American Chestnut Foundation...

Background/Question/Methods Changing climate conditions and threats of pest and pathogen infestation will increase the risk that forest trees could experience population-level extirpation or species-level extinction during the next century. In the face of these challenges, it will be important to safeguard existing adaptedness within species and...

Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis [L.] Carr.) is a widespread and ecologically important conifer species of eastern North America that is threatened by the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand), a pest introduced into the United States from Asia in the 1920s. Information about the genetic composition of eastern hemlock is necessary to guid...

Several years ago, Strauss et al. (1992) thoughtfully evaluated the application of molecular markers in forest tree breeding for marker aided selection. The purpose of their paper was to emphasize the limitations and shortcomings of marker-aided selection particularly in conifers. They argued that studies of quantitative trait loci identified in ag...