Penobscot Experimental Forest: 60 years of research and demonstration in Maine, 1950-2010

The Penobscot Experimental Forest (PEF) in Maine has been the site of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station (previously Northeastern Forest Experiment Station) research on northern conifer silviculture and ecology since 1950. Purchased by forest industry and leased to the Forest Service for long-term experimentation, the PEF was donated to the University of Maine Foundation in 1994. Since that time, the University and the Forest Service have worked in collaboration to advance the PEF as a site for research, demonstration, and education. This publication reports the history of the PEF during its first 60 years (1950 to 2010) and presents highlights of research accomplishments in silviculture, ecology, ecophysiology, nutrient cycling, botany, and other areas. Issues of data management and forest management planning are addressed. Also included is a bibliography of publications originating from research on the PEF, as well as recollections of a research forester stationed there for 30 years. More than half a century of work on the PEF has served as an important source of information for practitioners and policy makers in the Acadian Forest region of the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada, and informed the practice of silviculture nationally and internationally. Long-term consistency in treatment application and measurement; stand-level replication; and accessible, digital data, metadata, and records archives have facilitated hundreds of studies and made the PEF an invaluable and highly influential research site.