By JAMES RONALD SKAINS
"Most of the research we do on forest management here at the Research Center in Pineville makes its way into private industry," Dr. James Barnett, Project Leader of the Forest Management section at the Center told the Piney Woods Journal. "My section deals with forest management techniques such as reforestation, growth and yield, and soils and root fertility. Some of this work we do on a contract basis for private industry."

"The biggest project that we have going at the present time is in response to the physiology of trees in relation to global warming," said Dr. Barnett, who has been working at the Pineville Research adjacent to the main office of the Kisatchie National Forest since the early 1960's. "On our PALUSTRIS Experimental Farm, which is the technical name for Longleaf pine, we have a couple of plots of pine trees under intense scrutiny."

"We have towers up 40 feet to near the crowns of the trees," Dr. Barnett told the Journal on a visit to the site. "We have wires going all over the trees measuring temperature and light in the crown area. We also have sensors plugged into the tree trunks measuring moisture content and sap flow."

"We also have sensors and wires underground getting readings from the root system," Dr. Barnett pointed out. "What we are trying to determine is stress factors hitting the trees such as lack of moisture, normal and excessive rainfall and global warming temperatures. All these wires from the sensors on the trees and roots are hooked into laptop computers."

"Most of this work is performed by LSU forestry graduate students," said Dr. Barnett, who obtained his PH.D in Forest Ecology from Duke University in the mid-1960's. "We have one graduate student who focuses on the canopy and crowns, another on the tree trunk and another on the root systems. With this information, we are learning a lot about the actual physiology of trees on daily basis."

The work with metal towers, wires, and sensors on the trees on the Johnson tract of the experimental forest in the Kisatchie forest a little south of Kincaid Lake, has been underway under Dr. Barnett's supervision for the last seven years. A couple of years ago, the researchers arrived on-site one day to find that a lightning strike had fried many of the wires coming into their data collection building along with their computers.

One building was destroyed during the lightning strike and two trees were killed. A complete make-over occurred and instead of on-site computers, the researchers bring laptops to the site and download the collected data.

The USDA Forest Service Research Center at Pineville was established in 1946. The Center was a favorite project of the late U.S. Senator Allen Ellender, who was a frequent visitor.

Some of the first forest researchers at the Center were Fred Peavy, Harold Durr, and Bill Mann. Mann, a Penn State forestry graduate, was a longtime Director and project leader at the Research Center. Mann died of a heart attack in the woods during the early 1980's near Winnfield.

"Our research focus has changed considerably since early days of the Center," said Dr. Barnett, a son of a old time Arkansas logger. "The Research Center here at Pineville was established at the end of WWII and its initial focus was reforestation through direct seeding and the impact of reforestation on open range cattle grazing."

"When I came aboard in the in the early 1960's, our focus was still on direct seeding and reforestation," Dr. Barnett, the former U.S. Coast Guard Officer, noted. "However, we were getting into seed physiology from the standpoint of collection, storage and treatment of seed. We were also beginning to look at the use of herbicides to control undesirable hardwoods."

"We are still collecting data from some of our early efforts on stand management, thinning and spacing," Dr. Barnett emphasized.

"Our focus in the late 1960's shifted to growth and yield data, soil fertility work and reforestation with seedlings."

"A lot of my personal research work has been done with Longleaf pine which has one of the more delicate germination cycles. The survival rate of bare-root Longleaf seedlings was only 40-60%."

"There has been a desire to restore the Longleaf in areas of Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas that was originally Longleaf pine," Dr. Barnett pointed out. "It's very difficult to restore Longleaf to its native areas. I've done a lot of research on growing Longleaf seedlings in containers."

"The survival rate of Longleaf seedlings grown in containers is between 80 and 90%," Dr. Barnett told the Journal during our visit to his Research Center office in Pineville. "The Longleaf is the only pine species that needs containers for its seeds and seedlings. Over the years, I've done numerous Longleaf Container workshops around the south and have written several research papers and pamphlets on the Longleaf Container concept."

"The price of Longleaf seedlings has soared to $175-250 per thousand as our research has helped develop proper seedling growing techniques," Dr. Barnett explained. "Price of Longleaf seeds has gone up from $25 per pound to $100 per pound as demand has increased."

"A lot more of our research data from the USDA Forest Service Research Center here at Pineville is used by the private forest industry than is used by the Forest Service," noted Dr. Barnett, who obtained a B.S. and M.A. in forestry from LSU. "The Research Center here at Pineville is unique in several aspects. It is the only Research Center in the Forest Service system that is part of a National Forest headquarters unit. We try and get a lot of our funding now through what we call `challenge cost programs' for which we do specific research for private forest industries."

Dr. Barnett also pointed out the work of Dr. Dick Tinus. "Dr. Tinus is assigned to our Pineville Research Center although he lives and works in Flagstaff, Arizona. Dr. Tinus is a recognized expert in tree physiology and growing trees in nurseries. Dr. Tinus has a Master's degree from Duke and a Ph.D from the University of California at Berkeley, and works primarily with tree nurseries in the northwest part of the country."

Dr. Barnett grew up in Mena, Arkansas and as a teenager helped his Dad, Preston Barnett and his Uncle Jeff Barnett in the logging woods of the Ouachita National Forest. Dr. Barnett, who grew up on a 110-acre farm near Mena told the Journal about his teenage experiences in the logging woods. "I really enjoyed helping my Dad in the woods. He and my Uncle were still using mules to skid and load with during the early 1950's. It was a lot of fun for me."

Dr. Barnett noted "I like to garden and grow vegetables in my spare time. I guess I got my start in the garden growing up on the farm in Arkansas."

Dr. Barnett first attended Arkansas Tech at Russellville, Arkansas before coming to LSU to get his degrees in forestry. He married a Louisiana girl, Jena Reynaud, who became an elementary school teacher. They have two sons. Neither son has followed Dr. Barnett into forestry although son Mark has a Ph.D in English from Texas A&M. Jim, the other son is in the insurance business in Atlanta.

"I've seen a lot of changes in our Research Center over the years," Dr. Barnett pointed out. "As late as ten years ago, we had 25 people in our Forest Management section, but budget cuts have reduced that down to 17 including myself. We have five scientists on staff plus 12 support people."

"I've been blessed with some outstanding research staff people,"

Dr. Barnett said in explaining some of the workings of the Research Center. "John McGilvery and I worked real close on the Longleaf seedlings container project. We actually collaborated on a small book on our research findings about the Longleaf containers."

In response to the Journal's question about his normal routine at the Research Center, Dr. Barnett had this to say: "In a normal year, I will make four to five technical presentations at seminars and conferences around the country. And I usually attend one or two where I don't make presentations. I will usually get out six to ten.

USDA Forest Service publications each year plus take a lot of phone calls from forest industry people needing our research data."

"One of the more interesting people that I came to know in this business was Phillip Wakely, who if I remember right was a University of Syracuse forestry graduate," Dr. Barnett stated. "Wakely was from Ithaca, New York and was real pioneer in the forest industry. He was really into seed and seedling research. He collected pine seeds way back in the 1920's and kept some in refrigerators for over 30 years."

"He followed some of these seed trails for 50 years and actually had a 70% germination rate on slash pine after all those years in a jar in a refrigerator," Dr. Barnett added about Wakeley's long-running seed research. "With shortleaf pine, the germination rate was about 40% but he didn't have much success with keeping Longleaf seeds."

Dr. Barnett took a two-year leave of absence from the U.S. Forest Service in 1966 to go to Duke University to study under Professor Frank Woods, who at one time worked for the U.S. Forest Service. He noted that "We are now seeing mostly international students in our forestry graduate programs. Apparently, other countries are beginning to place a big emphasis on taking care of their forest lands."