Vegetation Management Effects on Planted Forests

Dear Colleagues,

Silvicultural decisions made at the time of stand establishment can have profound and long-lasting impacts on the trajectory of the new stand. Competition between early-seral vegetation and planted seedlings is often intense, requiring managers to determine the method, intensity, and timing of the vegetation management treatments needed to meet the project objectives. Optimizing vegetation management treatments is important, as the associated costs can be significant and must be carried out until harvest. Failing to control competing vegetation can result in extensive seedling mortality, growth losses, delayed stand establishment, and the proliferation of invasive noxious species. Managers, however, often have limited information on the optimal method, intensity, and timing of the vegetation management treatments required to meet project objectives. This is further complicated by several factors, including crop species, climate change, introduction of invasive species, development of new vegetation control methods, environmental regulations, and high costs. Understanding the biological, ecological, and economic impacts of forest vegetation management is pivotal to developing sustainable silvicultural systems because of their importance in successfully establishing new stands. We invite submissions to a Special Issue of Forests on the subject of “Vegetation Management Effects on Planted Forests”. Topics for submissions may include, but are not limited to, the following: forest vegetation management; silviculture; reforestation; site preparation; herbicides; biodiversity; forest economics; forest health; modelling; monitoring and so on.

Dr. Carlos Gonzalez-Benecke
Mr. Maxwell G. Wightman
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• forest vegetation management
• silviculture
• reforestation
• site preparation
• herbicides
• biodiversity
• forest economics
• forest health
• modelling
• monitoring