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Prior agricultural land use often plays an important role in the present condition of forests. This research was conducted to find any productivity differences among previously plowed, pastured, and woodlot sites. There are six sites, two from each of the land use types. With this research we wanted to estimate the productivity for each of the six stands and test the hypothesis that rates of annual aboveground biomass and annual litter fall in recovering forests would decline in the order woodlot - pastured - plowed.

Twenty-five trees, of various diameters and species, were cored at each site. The cores were analyzed and the radial growth was calculated for the most recent 5 and 10 year intervals. Biomass increments were also calculated for the same time span using published allometric equations. Aboveground woody productivity was calculated for diameter classes within species and semi-log relationships of productivity per diameter were used to calculate the productivity of all trees in the stand that were not cored. Site-specific and species-specific equations were used. Litter fall was estimated by collecting litter from ten traps each in the six stands. Litter was sorted by species and reported on a dry matter basis.

Red oaks and red maples were the major contributors of biomass and litter fall in all six of the stands, accounting for about seventy percent of the total aboveground biomass. Although woodlots had higher total biomass there was not a significant difference in productivity across the six sites. The range of productivity including both litter fall and aboveground woody production was from 7524-9014 Kg/ha. This fell into the range for temperate forests according to results published by the International Biological Program. Production per unit biomass was greater in the plowed stand and least in the woodlots.