Prescribed fires are increasingly implemented throughout eastern deciduous forests to accomplish various management objectives, including maintenance of oak-dominated (Quercus spp.) forests. Despite a regional research-based understanding of prehistoric and historic fire regimes, a parallel understanding of contemporary fire use to preserve oak forests is only emerging, and with somewhat inconsistent results. For prescribed fires to be effective, they must positively influence oak regeneration at one or more critical life stages: pollination, flowering, seed set, germination, establishment, seedling development, and release into the canopy. We posit that a simplistic view of the relationship between fire and oak forests has led to a departure from an ecologically based management approach with prescribed fire. Here, we call for a refinement in our thinking to improve the match between management tools and objectives and provide some guidelines for thinking more ecologically about when and where to apply fire on the landscape to sustain oak-dominated forests.

Restoration of bottomland hardwood forests is the subject of considerable interest in the southern United States, but restoration success is elusive. Techniques for establishing bottomland tree species are well developed, yet problems have occurred in operational programs. Current plans for restoration on public and private land suggest that as many as 200,000 hectares could be restored in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley alone. The ideal of ecological restoration is to reestablish a completely functioning ecosystem. Although some argue that afforestation is incomplete restoration, it is a necessary and costly first step but not an easy task. The 1992 Wetlands Reserve Program in Mississippi, which failed on 90% of the area, illustrates the difficulty of broadly applying our knowledge of afforestation. In our view, the focus for ecological restoration should be to restore functions, rather than specifying some ambiguous natural state based on reference stands or pre‐settlement forest conditions. We view restoration as one element in a continuum model of sustainable forest management, allowing us to prescribe restoration goals that incorporate landowner objectives. Enforcing the discipline of explicit objectives, with restoration expectations described in terms of predicted values of functions, causal mechanisms and temporal response trajectories, will hasten the development of meaningful criteria for restoration success. We present our observations about current efforts to restore bottomland hardwoods as nine myths, or statements of dubious origin, and at best partial truth.

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Afforestation of marginal agricultural land in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) relies on native species, planted mostly in single-species plantations. Hard mast species such as oak and pecan are favored for their value to wildlife, especially on public land. Successful afforestation requires an understanding of site variation within floodplains and matching species preferences and tolerances to site characteristics, in particular to inundation regimes. Soil physical conditions, root aeration, nutrient availability, and moisture availability during the growing season also must be considered in matching species to site. Afforestation methods include planting seedlings or cuttings, and direct-seeding. Both methods can be done by hand or by machine. If good quality seedlings are planted properly and well cared for before planting, the chances for successful establishment are high but complete failures do occur. Mortality and poor growth are caused by many factors: extended post-planting drought or flooding; poor planting or seeding practices; poor quality seed or seedlings; animal depredation; or herbicide drift from aerial application to nearby cropland. More species can be planted, even on continuously flooded sites. Direct-seeding, while limited to heavy-seeded species (oaks and hickories), costs less than 50 % of planting seedlings. Growth varies considerably by soil type; most bottomland hardwoods grow best on silt loam and less well on clay soils. Up to 200 000 ha of land in the LMAV subject to spring and early summer backwater flooding could be afforested over the next decade.