| Deerfield
middle section |
John
Eichholz |
| Feb
21, 2005 15:49 PST |
ENTS:
On Saturday I explored the south bank Deerfield river west of
the
Bardwell's Ferry bridge aiming to get to the Bear River basin.
Along the
way I came across one new height maxima for the mid section of
the
Deerfield River and some nice white pine, but no major
discoveries.
There is an abundance of red oak in the 110' range, but I didn't
find
any over the previous 114' max. The Bear River basin is
extremely steep
sided on the east bank (state owned) and more level on the west.
The
Bear river filled the valley and was quite high and partially
covered
with ice. Not wanting to finish my time on earth, I decided not
to
explore it. For some reason I did scale the bank at a place that
seemed
ok, but found myself clinging to thin trees and looking down
upon 100'
of icy slope. I found a new appreciation for laurel, and made it
to the
top. The hill levels off to a north facing plateau with quite
good
growing conditions. Black birch, bitternut hickory and sugar
maple all
reached 85% of their state height maxima. The trees are mostly
second
growth, perhaps 60-90 years old, with a sprinkling of much older
trees,
among a setting of stone walls and long views. A skidoo trail
passes
through, which farther east seems marked for widening. The land
is part
of the South River State Forest. I came up with the following:
|
species
|
height
|
CBH
|
|
Red Maple
|
102.52
|
5.3
|
|
Northern Red Oak
|
107.82
|
8.6
|
|
White Pine
|
129.48
|
7.9
|
|
White Pine
|
129.09
|
7.1
|
|
Black Birch
|
95.28
|
8.7
|
|
White Ash
|
99.82
|
4.5
|
|
Bitternut Hickory
|
109.35
|
5.9
|
|
Bitternut Hickory
|
108.59
|
4.1
|
|
Bitternut Hickory
|
112.3
|
6
|
|
Bitternut Hickory
|
111.17
|
7
|
|
Sugar Maple
|
109.61
|
7.5
|
The Rucker
index for the Deerfield midsection is 112.35:
|
species
|
height
|
CBH
|
|
White Pine
|
129.5
|
7.9
|
|
White Ash
|
115.4
|
4.9
|
|
Northern Red Oak
|
114.8
|
5.7
|
|
Bitternut Hickory
|
112.3
|
6
|
|
Sugar Maple
|
109.6
|
7.5
|
|
Eastern Hemlock
|
109.5
|
7.6
|
|
Bigtooth Aspen
|
109.3
|
5.8
|
|
Red Spruce
|
109.0
|
5.4
|
|
Shagbark Hickory
|
107.9
|
4
|
|
American Basswood
|
106.3
|
6.6
|
Rucker index
112.35 6.14
I posted a photo of the black birch with 2' of measuring tape
showing, at:
http:/www.bcn.net/~johneich/bb2.jpg
John
|
| Re:
Deerfield middle section |
John
Eichholz |
| Feb
21, 2005 17:50 PST |
Will:
Records are kind of sketchy especially for "champions"
in
Massachusetts. Bob has a black birch in Amherst that is 88.3' h,
9.7'
cbh, which is a little bigger before figuring in spread, and
also on
ENTS points. It is a big tree, though. Maybe #2? It has a fork
at 15'
or so.
John
| |
Will
Blozan wrote:
What a huge birch! Could it be a state champion?
|
|
|
