Pinus elliottii Growth Areas and Yield Estimation

Pinus elliottii a native of the southern USA also goes by the name of slash pine. It is an evergreen conifer with very long needles, an extensive root system and a moderate taproot (Hill, 2001). P. elliottii is the hardiest of the three main species of pine grown in South Africa (the other two being P. patula and P. taeda) and produces a relatively hard, durable wood which, because of its high resin content, however, limits its marketability (Smith, 1998). Normally planted in pits, it is weed sensitive (Smith, 1998).

Climatically optimum growth areas for Pinus elliottii have been defined in the ICFR`s Forestry Toolbox (Kunz, 2004), by mean annual precipitation (MAP) and mean annual temperature (MAT), as illustrated in This figure also shows the climatic conditions under which suboptimum growth would take place because conditions may at times be too cold and damage from snow occurs, or because occasional drought may occur. Optimum and sub-optimum growth areas of P. elliottii were mapped by applying these criteria to the one arc minute (1` x 1` of a degree latitude/longitude) databases of MAP (Lynch, 2004) and MAT (Schulze and Maharaj, 2004) for South Africa. Using Smith`s (1994) rule based approach and considering only his climatic criteria and not soil or management factors, Pinus elliottii yield estimates were done.