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Beyond the Bog: The Importance of Forested Watershed

Management to South Jersey’s Cranberry Farms
By: Kyle Smith
Stockton University
October 7, 2022

Commercial-level cranberry production in the New Jersey Pine Barrens dates back to the

mid-1800s. On one of the cranberry farms near Chatsworth, NJ, Consulting Forester, Bob

Williams, was gracious enough to give us a tour of the approximately 2,000 acres he manages for

forested watershed health. For the past 20 years, Williams has been implementing a variety of

silvicultural treatments to “keep the [surrounding] forest vibrant” and able to provide a valuable

ecosystem service to this Chatsworth cranberry farm. Since cranberry bogs are flooded for the

autumn harvest and during the winter to protect both vines and buds from injury, the quality and

supply of water that these forested watersheds can provide is critical to cranberry cultivation.

Prior to European colonization, Native Americans set frequent surface fires to maintain

the Pine Barrens as an open woodland with fewer, but larger pines and a herbaceous understory.

“Fire is the basis of ecology for this land,” says Williams. By incorporating a fire regime into his

management, Williams is helping to restore certain stands to the likely pre-colonial condition and

enhancing the ecological services associated with it (Image 1). In terms of watershed impact,

prescribed fire consumes much of the heavy huckleberry root mat and leaf litter that would

otherwise act as a sponge and slow down the process of rainwater infiltration. Prescribed fire, in

combination with practices like scarification to expose mineral soil, allows precipitation that falls

in these stands to quickly infiltrate the ground surface and percolate through the sandy soil where

it is naturally purified. This results in a greater rate of aquifer recharge with clean water than can

be utilized in cranberry cultivation.

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Image 1. An 80-year-old pitch pine-shrub stand that has been improved to an open woodland
condition through a 35% thinning and a 5–10-year prescribed burn interval.
However, Williams is careful to note, “you can’t burn your way back,” in South Jersey.

Not only is there a tight window where conditions for burning are optimal, but proximity to

development is also another limitation managers must account for. For this reason, Williams has

incorporated a strong element of thinning into his management as well. A little over one-third of

the trees in the mature pitch pine stand shown in Image 1 were initially cut. The stand was

subsequently burned and in the following year smaller or otherwise “defective” trees were again

cut. Williams says that he concentrates more on what he is leaving than what he is taking. By

leaving the best trees and removing competitors, thinning for stand improvement frees up

growing space that allows larger trees to further expand their root systems and improve their live

crown ratio, thus increasing their vigor.

Reducing the density of trees also allows for greater rainwater infiltration and percolation

into the aquifer. The root systems of a dense stand quickly capture fallen precipitation and draw

groundwater from the soil under drier conditions. When there is complete crown closure, as
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shown in the untreated unit in Image 2, a great deal of this water is lost to the atmosphere

through transpiration. Essentially, thinning on cranberry grower lands allows managers to

transform a dense stand that may have formerly been a drain on local groundwater resources into

a hotspot for aquifer recharge.

Image 2. The edge between a unit of a young shortleaf pine stand that was recently thinned from
below (left) versus an untreated unit of the stand (right).

Between anthropogenic climate change, the spread of southern pine beetle, and

heightened wildfire concerns, foresters today face no shortage of challenges in managing South

Jersey’s forested watersheds. Fortunately, the same silvicultural tools foresters like Williams are

using to manage for the clean water provision also enhance stand resilience. Look at the

comparison between a thinned versus untreated unit of the young shortleaf pine stand shown in

Image 2 and it is easy to see how a lower stem density would slow down the spread of a bark

beetle infestation. For that matter, when prescribed burning and thinning are used in combination
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for fuels reduction, we see in the mature pitch pine stand shown in Image 1 how the lack of

vertical continuity would reduce the risk of a wildfire crowning or spreading into cranberry bogs.

In fairness, there is probably more live tree carbon stored in the naturally regenerating

unit shown in Image 2 compared to the thinned unit. However, the untreated unit is also more

vulnerable to a destructive crown fire that would result in a catastrophic carbon release because

of the fuel buildup in the understory that would allow a wildfire to climb vertically. Since the

thinned unit has a comparatively low crown fire risk in the long-term, carbon will be stored

incrementally in retained trees that often exhibit more vigorous growth once competitors are

removed. Williams excitedly showed us an image of a cross-section he took of a young tree in

the mature pitch pine stand shown in Image 1 that exhibited an incredible half-inch ring of

growth in the year after the stand was initially thinned and burned. This gives me room for

optimism that ecological forest management in South Jersey’s cranberry growing lands can also

help with carbon sequestration as we increasingly look for strategies to mitigate climate change.