IMPACTS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT ON MEDICINAL HERBS IN THE MISSOURI OZARKS __________________________________________________________________________ A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia ______________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science ______________________________________________________ by BADGER BALDWIN JOHNSON Dr. Shibu Jose, Thesis Supervisor MAY 2017 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled IMPACTS OF SILVICULTURAL MANAGEMENT ON MEDICINAL HERBS IN THE MISSOURI OZARKS presented by Badger Baldwin Johnson, a candidate for the degree of Master of Science and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. ____________________________________________ Shibu Jose, Ph.D. ____________________________________________ Rose-Marie Muzika, Ph.D. ____________________________________________ James L. Chamberlain III, Ph.D. ____________________________________________ Leszek Vincent, Ph.D. ____________________________________________ Chung-Ho Lin, Ph.D. DEDICATION I dedicate this research work to all well-intentioned foresters, farmers, scientists, activists, bureaucrats, politicians, teachers and students who help our society care for the earth. May we come together in the ways we need to and up our game in the 21st century. Thank you Gaia, in your intelligent and loving embrace I move and live and have my being. Thank you to my Gunga, and my mom Nancy Sullivan, who steadfastly supported my connection with Gaia from a young age. Thank you to my dad Mac Johnson for loving me and for being a solid job coach these days. Beyond that, I feel so much gratitude to all the teachers who have particularly helped me develop along the way. The list is long, but starts with Eileen Frechette, all the staff at Edge of Appalachia Reserve, Jack Muir Laws, Misha Golfman, Starhawk, Joe Hollis, Israel Regardie, Charles Griffin, Art Trese, Frances Gander, John Schmieding, Rudy Nickens and Tim Jackins. Your mentorship has been invaluable. Finally, thanks to my family of choice. Together we can do anything! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Much gratitude goes out to my thesis committee. An especial thank you to Dr. Shibu Jose for believing in me, Drs. Rose-Marie and Jim Chamberlain for your careful attention to detail on the manuscripts, Dr. Leszek Vincent for your warm words and encouragement, and Dr. Chung-Ho Lin for inspiring me. An extra thanks is due to Shibu, Rose-Marie, Jim and Leszek, as well as to Ryan Dibala and Michael Borucke for reviewing this manuscript. Each of you helped turn this from a few term papers into what will hopefully be published as a series of articles in peer-refereed journals. Additional thanks are owed to Dr. Mike Gold, Dr. Ben Knapp and Dr. John Kabrick for being there when I needed someone to extrovertly geek out with, or had a question they could efficiently answer. To our primary collaborator at the Missouri Department of Conservation, Dr. Liz Olson, as well as Dr. Dawn Henderson. The generosity with your time, and your clarifying support has been indispensable. Cal Maginel, thank you for your ongoing help in getting my bearings in Missouri ecosystems. Thank you to Alicia Struckhoff for assisting with our adoption of the Ecosystem Site Description typology. Thank you to Thomas Fieldan and Doug Ladd of The Nature Conservancy Missouri, your unreserved data sharing was a real boon to the project. Thank you Elly Lang and Bo Young for your field support at HARC and Doug Allen’s! Wow! And though I don’t know all of their names, thank you to all the people who were out there botanizing as seed tick bombs went off all around you in 100 ° F weather, at MOFEP and CCMA. Piggybacking on your efforts allowed us at the Center for Agroforestry to do a lot more than we ever could have on our own. Thanks is due to Calvin Maginel, friend, Missouri native and botanist extraordinaire for helping me understand and adapt to the Ozark context of these forest farming projects. Finally, thanks to my comrades at Fretboard Coffee (Aba, Sarah, Dan, Austin et al.) for creating a supportive atmosphere for writing this thesis. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................................... ii TABLE OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................... v TABLE OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................ix ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 PROBLEM STATEMENT ............................................................................................................ 2 GOALS AND OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 2: GROWTH, REPRODUCTION AND PHOTOSYNTHESIS OF FOUR HERBS IN CANOPY GAPS OF HARDWOOD FORESTS IN CENTRAL MISSOURI .................................................................................................................. 8 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 9 MATERIALS AND METHODS ................................................................................................. 11 RESULTS ...................................................................................................................................... 15 AVERAGE DAILY PAR AND NTFP PHYSIOLOGY ............................................................. 21 SOIL FERTILITY AND PRECIPITATION DIFFERENCES BY SITE ................................ 29 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................ 30 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER 3 IMPACTS OF TIMBER HARVEST ON MEDICINAL HERBS IN THE MISSOURI OZARKS ......................................................................................................... 35 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 35 MATERIALS AND METHODS ................................................................................................. 39 iii Study Area ....................................................................................................................... 39 Statistical Analyses ......................................................................................................... 40 RESULTS ...................................................................................................................................... 44 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................ 53 CHAPTER 4: EFFECTS OF PRESCRIBED FIRE ON MEDICINAL HERBS IN THE MISSOURI OZARKS ......................................................................................................... 58 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 58 MATERIALS AND METHODS ................................................................................................. 61 RESULTS ...................................................................................................................................... 65 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................ 71 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... 77 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................. 78 LITERATURE CITED ............................................................................................................................... 81 APPENDIX 1 ............................................................................................................................................... 98 APPENDIX 2 ............................................................................................................................................... 99 APPENDIX 3 ............................................................................................................................................. 102 iv TABLE OF TABLES Table 1 Summary statistics (mean, standard deviation, range) and description of explanatory variables in the forest farming study. SD=standard deviation. Units of measurement indicated in brackets. .................................................................. 17 Table 2 Results of ANOVA with for canopy gap treatment, by site. Significance value P=0.05. Sample size n=80 for each site by treatment combination. ............................... 21 Table 3 Accumulated precipitation in cm, annually and during the growing season, for both sites and treatments.