Clonal Loblolly Pine Growth Explained by Multiple Regression Analysis of Soil Properties.

A year long temporal analysis of soil properties and their influence on Clonal loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) is being performed on the Piedmont physiographic region of Southern Virginia.  During a complete growing season, a set of soil physical and chemical properties will be measured to determine the relationship between soil properties and several tree growth metrics.  Using a stepwise linear regression, we are attempting to correlate macronutrient and physical soil properties on tree growth while eliminating the confounding variability of the genetics.