As I mentioned last week, I've had a Douglas fir stand on the forest picked out for a while, but have been waiting for the snow to go. It remains a bit wet and mucky out there, but the lower part of the stand is open enough to start work. EDO was with me yesterday, so it meant that she did most of the work: She carried the saw, ran the saw, and drove the increment borer. I made pictures.
It is going to be an interesting stand. I expected to find older live trees and some relict dead Doug fir in the understory, similar to what I have been finding in the Book Cliffs. But, it is completely the opposite: The live trees are merely 100 years old and the relicts are Gambel oak, aspen, and Rocky Mountain maple. This was, apparently, a shrub field circa 1910. At any rate, we have eleven new samples to process and should know more when that is done.
What's the purpose of you taking all these old core samples? What's your "project," so to say? (Jess)
ReplyDeleteHey Jess. I don't know that there is really any project. It is mostly just for fun. Tree nerd fun. When I am walking in the woods, I feel curious: what is it? where did it come from? where is it going? If I spin a few plots or collect a few samples, I can start to answer my own questions. A combination of personal and professional interest, I guess. Though probably it is simply nerdiness. Next time you're on the MLS, I'll show you my 1303 Douglas fir!
DeleteWe need to start plotting the tree locations and display them by age, showing a heat map of sorts of tree ages on your forest. Your tree nerdiness and my GIS nerdiness ...
ReplyDelete