Application of the strip clear-cutting system in a running bamboo (Phyllostachys glauca McClure) forest: feasibility and sustainability assessments

Kuan Liang; Guangru Wang; Zhan Shen; Juan Wu; Na Zou; Hongying Yu; Shebao Yu; Fusheng Chen; Jianmin Shi

doi:10.3389/fpls.2024.1335250

Application of the strip clear-cutting system in a running bamboo (Phyllostachys glauca McClure) forest: feasibility and sustainability assessments

Front Plant Sci. 2024 Feb 12:15:1335250. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1335250. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Kuan Liang^{1

2}, Guangru Wang^{1

3}, Zhan Shen¹, Juan Wu^{1

4}, Na Zou¹, Hongying Yu¹, Shebao Yu¹, Fusheng Chen^{1

2}, Jianmin Shi¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Forestry, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China.
² Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Forest Ecosystem Protection and Restoration of Poyang Lake Watershed, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China.
³ CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China.
⁴ Jiangxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil and Water Conservation, Jiangxi Academy of Water Science and Engineering, Nanchang, China.

Abstract

Introduction: As a renewable forest resource, bamboo plays a role in sustainable forest development. However, traditional cutting systems, selection cutting (SeC) and clear-cutting (ClC), result in an unsustainable production of bamboo forests due to labor-consuming or bamboo degradation. Recently, a strip clear-cutting (StC) was theoretically proposed to promote the sustainability of bamboo production, while little is known about its application consequence.

Methods: Based on a 6-year experiment, we applied the strip clear-cutting system in a typical running bamboo (Phyllostachys glauca McClure) forest to assess its feasibility and sustainability. Using SeC and ClC as controls, we set three treatments with different strip widths (5 m, 10 m, and 20 m) for strip clear-cutting, simplified as StC-5, StC-10, and StC-20, respectively. Then, we investigated leaf physiological traits, bamboo size and productivity, population features, and economic benefits for all treatments.

Results: The stands managed by StC had high eco-physiological activities, such as net photosynthetic rate (P _n), photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency (PNUE), and photosynthetic phosphorus use efficiency (PPUE), and thus grew well, achieved a large diameter at breast height (DBH), and were tall. The stand biomass of StC (8.78 t hm^-2 yea^r-1) was 1.19-fold and 1.49-fold greater than that of SeC and ClC, respectively, and StC-10 and StC-20 were significantly higher than SeC or ClC (p< 0.05). The income and profit increased with the increase in stand density and biomass, and StC-20 and StC-10 were significantly higher than SeC or ClC (p< 0.05). Using principal components analysis and subordinate function analysis, we constructed a composite index to indicate the sustainability of bamboo forests. For the sustainability assessment, StC-10 had the highest productive sustainability (0.59 ± 0.06) and the second highest economic sustainability (0.59 ± 0.11) in all cutting treatments. StC-10 had the maximum overall sustainability, with a value of 0.53 ± 0.02, which was significantly higher than that of ClC (p< 0.05).

Conclusion: The results verified that StC for Phyllostachys glauca forests is feasible and sustainable as its sustainability index outweighs those of traditional cutting systems (SeC and ClC), and 10 m is the optimum distance for the strip width of StC. Our findings provide a new cutting system for managing other running bamboo forests sustainably.

Keywords: bamboo forest; economic benefit; membership value; productivity trait; sustainability.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by Key Research and Development Projects in Jiangxi Province (20232BBF60022 and 20161BBF60082), the Talent Training Project of Major Academic and Technical Leaders of Jiangxi Province (20225BCJ22006), and the Forestry Science and Technology Innovation Project of Jiangxi Province (No. 2021-03).