some new AR champions   Don Bragg
  Jul 06, 2007 13:02 PDT 

ENTS--

After some hiatus in exploring the woods of the Arkansas region for big
trees, I finally had an opportunity when one of our student workers
asked me to check on a tree he thought may go as a state champion.
Yesterday, he and I traveled to an area just north of the small town of
Des Arc, Arkansas on the White River. This area is not far from where
we made the field trip to Bayou DeView during the Old-Growth Forest
Conference that was held in Arkansas last year.
2007_DesArc_CowOak2.jpg (80629 bytes)
Des Arc Cow Oak

After driving along the narrow jeep trails of this 2,500 acre
privately-owned parcel, we came to a stop at the tree of interest. It
was a swamp chestnut oak (also known as a cow oak, or Quercus
michauxii). You may recall that I wrote of a very large example of a
cow oak at Big Oak Tree State Park in Missouri. The oak we visited
yesterday wasn't that big, but it was big enough--with a circumference
at 6 feet (measured there because of the pronounced buttressing of the
bole) of 70.1 inches, a sine height of 112 feet, and an average crown
spread of just over 106 feet, it easily out-pointed the current Arkansas
state champion. The tree (I'll send Ed some pictures to post on the
website) is vigorous, with large, healthy branches full of leaves and
little sign of decay or damage outside of an old lightning scar. This
oak does not appear to me to be particularly old, and with a healthy
crown and protection from logging, it has the potential to get much
bigger.

2007_DesArc_honeylocustb.jpg (87569 bytes)
Des Arc Honey Locust

The woods this tree is found in fascinated me with their diversity,
complex structure, lushness, and strong interrelationship with the White
River. The river, which flows just to the west of the stands we hiked
in, frequently (annually) floods the whole forest, depositing large
quantities of nutrient-rich silt. The alluvium is, no doubt, more
abundant than it probably had been historically, given all of the
agriculture done in this watershed, and is also full of the refuse of
life--especially human debris. The understory vegetation and the
lushness of the overstory are good indicators of the richness of the
land. I was impressed by how much pawpaw grew in the understory, and
the nettles, poison ivy, grape, greenbrier, cane, and other plants
carpeted any areas that got enough light to support their growth. Some
areas immediately adjacent to the river were dominated by black willow,
while slower backwater sloughs and low areas tended to be dominated by
baldcypress, water locust, and many other hardwood species I was not
familiar with. The somewhat higher and older levees and bars were
thickly mantled with a profusion of species, including sugarberry, sweet
pecan, cow oak, honeylocust, sycamore, elms, silver maple, green ash,
many hickory species, and several oaks, including Nuttall oak. The
highest and driest parts were dominated primarily by oaks--water,
willow, cherrybark, white, etc., with persimmons common along the edges
of fields.

2007_DesArc_Cypress2.jpg (139039 bytes)
Des Arc Cypress

After measuring the big oak, we drove a little further along a trail to
find some large cypress the student remembered. We hiked about 100
yards into the woods and soon came upon an old slough that was rapidly
being filled by sediments from new floods. I noted one or two old
cypress stumps in the slough that probably date back to when the cypress
was originally logged long ago. A number of smaller cypress 100 years
old or less lined the old slough, but there were several veterans that
survived the big cut, probably because of their poor form and log
quality. They were plenty good to me, though! The biggest of these
baldcypress was a stout ol' survivor of many a storm and flood. Almost
82 inches at DBH, this cypress was 105 feet tall, and had little taper
for much of this length. Two other cypress nearby each exceeded 65
inches DBH (I couldn't get a reliable height due to the thick canopy,
but they are both also probably over 100 feet tall). Before we left
this slough, we measured a couple of water locust at 15.7 and 19.8
inches DBH (estimated heights of between 50 and 70 feet). Anybody
familiar with this species knows what a thorny challenge water locust
can be...

We then started hiking back to the truck. On the way, we measured a
sweet pecan at about 40 inches in diameter (hard to say exactly due to a
thick coating of vines, including poison ivy). More notably, we
measured a tree we had originally spotted (and dismissed) while driving
the trail. At 50.3 inches at DBH, at least 97 feet tall, and with a 64
foot wide crown, this honeylocust also easily set a new state record for
Arkansas! This was an unexpected bonus!

So, over the course of a couple hours, we found what should be two new
state champions. The land has been largely cutover, but I suspect there
are some other champions out there, given the size and fertility of the
area and its relatively protected state. The student has promised to
keep searching the area for big trees, so who knows what else may be
lurking--the state (and probably national) champion tupelo gum is only a
few miles from here, and a number of other champions can be found in the
general region.

Don

*****************
Don Bragg, Ph.D.
Research forester
*****************

RE: some new AR champions   Matthew Hannum
  Jul 08, 2007 15:14 PDT 

Very nice report - sounds like there are a bunch of big trees in the
woods of Arkansas!

I find the flooding and silt deposits caused by the river of interest
since it seems that the trees in question have no problems with having
their roots under water for a period of time and then buried with
increasing layers of silt. In the suburbs once of the most common causes
of tree fatalities, especially with oak trees, is planting the tree too
deep from the beginning, or later burying the roots of an established
tree with fill soil or changing the grade of the land around the tree.

Perhaps in the future homeowners should consider trees that are more
tolerant of such events: we all know that trees like silver maples,
cottonwoods, sycamores, and other floodplain species do well both along
river and in suburban yards, but silver maples and cottonwoods tend to
fall apart, and sycamores are huge. Oak trees are very popular even for
folks who don't know much about trees, but they tend to suffer badly if
the roots are disturbed. I am wondering how well the various swamp and
floodplain dwelling oaks would perform in the average yard: trees like
swamp chestnut oak, overcup oak, and so on. Perhaps using them would be
a good way to get the pleasure of an oak tree without worrying as much
about possible root disturbances later.

Any thoughts on this? Of course, most homeowners just buy whatever they
find at the big-box home improvement stores, and you're lucky to get a
choice of northern red oak AND pin oak most of the time. Still, if
floodplain oaks are considerably better suited to the average yard, it
may be worth considering them for such a use.

RE: some new AR champions   Don Bragg
  Jul 10, 2007 05:49 PDT 

Matthew--

There are more big trees hidden in parts of the South than I'd ever
thought possible, given how hard the area has been logged. They are but
a tease of what the landscapes used to be...

I agree that these bottomland hardwoods species have some adaptations
that would make them good candidates for urban plantings. We do see
some baldcypress used--our neighbors have a good-sized tree in their
yard, and it looks pretty nice. A couple of other hardwoods we find in
these bottomland areas that are widely planted in many settings include
honeylocust, green ash, and red maple. However, sometimes even these
natives are planted too often in the wrong places.

Urban foresters, city planners, and especially real estate developers
and landscapers need to recognize that planting a diversity of trees is
critical to helping contain forest health issues that affect urban
areas. For instance, much of the Detroit, Michigan area had ash trees
lining their streets and yards, and when emerald ash borer reared its
ugly head, they got wiped out. Much the same as when American elms were
hammered by Dutch elm disease...

I suppose we'll be at the whims of the nursery industry for the most
part. Hopefully, the problems that exotic species (plants, bugs, and
disease) will get them to change their ways and start using more native
species--we have lots of viable species in our forests, if we can
convince people that there is more to life than Norway maple!

Don
RE: some new AR champions   Matthew Hannum
  Jul 10, 2007 15:35 PDT 

One of the many things I've learned since I joined the Ents group is
just how many different types of native trees we are blessed to have in
our forests. When I look at how few types actually show up in use in
suburbia or the cities, it is rather surprising - a lot of good
candidates don't show up in the average "big box" store's lots or in the
plans for new housing developments.

It is too bad the internet hasn't made as much progress here as I had
hoped. One can do so much research online these days AND order trees of
all sorts of different types. It is such a step up from the "old days"
where most folks would have to guess at even the names of trees, much
less their preferred growing conditions, without book research. Sadly, I
suspect most folks buy trees with about as much thought as they buy
annuals - "this one looks pretty!" - and there we go. It would be nice
to see at least one of the "big box" stores break away from this type of
behavior. I can't really believe that something like a Burr Oak really
costs that much more to raise than a Bradford Pear, but the payoff in
buying the Oak is such much greater.