The conversion of unmanaged forest land to homesites dominated by managed turfgrass lawns continues to increase and has large potential impacts on biogeochemical cycling. The conversion process from forest into mowed turfgrass involves a major disturbance to soil properties and shift in ecological conditions, which could affect soil physical, chemical and biological properties, including carbon sequestration. We conducted a study on 64 residential properties, ranging from 5 to 52 years since development, to compare soil carbon content, bulk density, temperature, and moisture, between lawns and the surrounding forests from which they were converted. Homeowners were surveyed on lawn management practices and environmental attitudes, and the relationships between these and soil properties were investigated. Soil bulk density was significantly higher in the upper 10 cm of lawns compared to adjacent forest (35% higher at 0–5 cm and 15.6% higher at 5–10 cm). Total soil C content to 30 cm of lawn (6.5 kg C m⁻²) and forest (7.1 kg C m⁻²) marginally differed (p = 0.08), and lawns contained significantly greater C (0.010 g C cm⁻³) than forests (0.007 g C cm⁻³) at the 20–30 cm soil depth (p = 0.0137). In the lawns, there was a positive relationship between time since development and surface (0–5 cm) C concentration (p = 0.04), but a negative relationship at 20–30 cm (p = 0.03). Surface soils also exhibited a positive correlation between fertilization frequency and C (p = 0.0005) content. Lawn management intensity (fertilizer and pesticide use) increased with environmental commitment. Homeowners with a higher environmental commitment had lawns with greater soil carbon levels. Our results indicate that converting unmanaged Appalachian hardwood forest into managed, turfgrass-dominated residential landscapes may affect C depth distribution, but results in little change in total soil carbon sequestration in the upper 30 cm.

Logging businesses play an important role in implementing forest management plans and delivering the raw material needed by forest products mills. Understanding the characteristics of the logging workforce can help forest managers make better decisions related to harvesting operations. We surveyed logging business owners across Virginia’s three physiographic regions (Mountains, Piedmont, and Coastal Plain). Overall, logging businesses reported an average production rate of 761.37 t/business/week, but this varied substantially by region, with the highest production rates in the Coastal Plain (1403.55 t/business/week), followed by the Piedmont (824.69 t/business/week) and the Mountains (245.42 t/business/week). Many operations in the Mountains rely primarily on manual felling (66.6% of respondents) and these operations often have lower production rates. Across all regions, 81.7% of reported production came from operations that primarily utilized rubber-tired feller-bunchers for felling. Logging businesses were sorted based on reported production capacity and then divided into three groups (high, medium, and low production) based on total reported production. Across all regions, the majority of reported production was produced by the high production logging businesses. This was highest in the Piedmont, where the high production businesses accounted for 74.8% of total reported production.

Logging residues are often utilized as a Best Management Practice (BMP) for stabilizing bare soil on forest harvesting operations. As utilization of woody biomass increases, concern has developed regarding availability of residues for implementing BMPs. The Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) inspects all logging operations in Virginia and randomly selects a portion of harvests for more intensive audits. The VDOF BMP audit process intensively evaluates implementation of BMPs in seven categories (84 specific BMPs) on 240 sites per year. This research analyzed three years of audit data (2010–2012) to quantify differences in BMP implementation between biomass and conventional harvesting operations. Among 720 audited tracts, 97 were biomass harvests, with 88 occurring in the Piedmont region. Only the streamside management zone (SMZ) category had significant implementation percentage differences between biomass (83.1%) and conventional harvests (91.4%) (p = 0.0007) in the Piedmont. Specific areas where biomass harvesting operations had lower implementation were generally not related to a lack of residues available for implementing BMPs, but rather were from a lack of appropriate SMZs, overharvesting within SMZs, or inadequate construction of roads, skid trails, and stream crossings. Existing BMP recommendations already address these areas and better implementation would have negated these issues.