The greatest snow depths (30-35 inches) (75-88 cm) were found on the opening sites 

 where the pine canopy had no influence. The least snow depths (8-20 inches) (20-50 cm) 

 were associated with areas of heavy canopy, although there were exceptions suggesting 

 that the physical arrangement of the canopy and wind drifting could be important. 



Soil Moisture Content 



The moisture content of the soil was highest in June, decreased through July and 

 August, and started to rise again in early September (fig. 1). For the three opening 

 treatments, the opening-litter plots tended to have a higher soil moisture than the 

 opening-cleared or opening-natural plots. This was likely due to the absence of 

 herbaceous vegetation and the presence of the litter layer that helped retain the mois- 

 ture. For those sites associated with the pine trees, the litter and near plots had 

 the highest soil moisture levels throughout the summer. The lowest soil moistures for 

 the summer were found in the fire and canopy treatments. 



Noturaj Seed Occurrence 



The plots associated with the pine stand had much greater numbers of natural seeds 

 than plots in the openings. The greatest number of seeds (14.0/ft2) (151/m^) occurred 

 on the canopy plots, and the least (2.7/ft^) (29/m^) were found on the opening-cleared 

 plots. As a group, the opening treatments averaged only 2.9 seed/ft^ (31/m^) compared 

 to 10.4 seeds/ft^ (112/m^) on the pine-associated plots. Thus, the areas immediately 

 adjacent to seed-producing trees have the greatest potential for seedling occurrence 

 due to greater seed numbers. , 



30 



20 



o 



10 



LIHER 



STEMFLOW 



OPENING- 

 LITTER 



OPENING- 

 NATURAL 



NATURAL 



CANOPY 



OPENING- 

 CLEARED 



2 



< 



■J 



iiLLiI 





liil.i.iL. ..1 



LLiJ.. 



1 JUNE 1 JULY 1 AUG. | SEPT. | JUNE | JULY | AUG. | SEPT.] JUNE | JULY | AUG. | SEPT. 



DATE 



Figure 1. — Temporal changes in soil moistures compared to amounts of rainfall. 



