This article is about crop plantations. For plantations of people, see article Plantation (settlement or colony) for that 17th Century meaning.

A plantation is an intentional planting of a crop, on a larger scale, usually for uses other than cereal production or pasture. The term is most often used for plantings of trees and shrubs. The term tends also to be used for plantings maintained on economic bases other than that of subsistence farming.

Forestry

---

In forestry, plantations of trees are typically grown as an even-aged monoculture for timber production. Plantations are also sometimes known as "man-made forests" or "tree farms", though this latter term more typically refers to specialist tree nurseries which produce the seedling trees used to create plantations. More generally, a plantation is forest land where trees are grown for commercial use, most often in a planted forest, but may also be in a naturally regenerated forest. In the United States, the term "Tree Farm" is a trademark of the American Tree Farm System, a third party verification system for certifying sustainable forestry. The American Tree Farm System dates back to 1941 as a program to improve forestry practices on privately owned forestlands. The term tree farm is also sometimes used to describe the sale of live trees for landscaping.

A plantation is usually made up of fast-growing trees planted to produce fiber. Planted forests, because of high productivity, can relieve logging pressures on natural forests. However plantations differ from natural forests in several ways:

• Plantations are usually monocultures. That is, the same species of tree is planted in rows across a given area, whereas a conventional forest would contain far more diverse tree species.
• Plantations may include introduced trees not native to the area, including (in a few cases) unconventional types such as hybrid trees and genetically modified trees. Since the primary interest in plantations is to produce wood or pulp, the types of trees found in plantations are those that are best-suited to industrial applications. For example, pine, spruce and eucalyptus are widely used because of their fast growth rate, and are good for paper and timber production.
• Plantations are always young forests. Typically, trees grown in plantations are harvested after 10 to 60 years, rarely up to 120 years. This means that the forests produced by plantations do not contain the type of growth, soil or wildlife typical of old-growth natural forest ecosystems. Most conspicuous is the absence of decaying dead wood, a very important part of natural forest ecosystems.

More on [ Plantation ]

WWLTV.com Top Stories and Video

Gov. Jindal: La. supplies running low after Gustav
Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:40:09 -0000

Corps' work holds up under Gustav's assault
Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:40:09 -0000

Several factors spared Houma from Great Flood
Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:40:09 -0000

How to use a generator safely
Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:40:09 -0000

Meg Farris explains FEMA assistance program
Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:40:09 -0000


Subscribe to Louisiana RSS feed