Robinson Park Visit, MA   Ray Weber   May 27, 2007 08:00 PDT  I had the pleasure of visiting Robinson State Park in Agawam,MA again yesterday, with Bob Leverett and others. It was as usual quite an experience. Ill let Bob handle the technical issues, but I need to pass on observations I made in the tulip poplar areas. One item of note is that there is quite a bit of regeneration that is taking place. Any small canopy opening is managing to produce seedlings and saplings under it. Some of the saplings are starting to reach a reasonable diameter and size. There is an ongoing "rare community" study by Natural Heritage of some of these areas. They plan on taking soil samples etc, and reearching why they are doing so very well in the ravines at Robinson Park. Gary Beluzo is also doing quite a bit of work at Robinson and other area parks, documenting where and how well tulip poplar is doing there. The major annoyance is that there are still healthy saplings in one plot, to 3 inch circumference, that are marked for cutting. The Massachusetts DCR is proposing to move a trail, bringing it right through this ravine. The ravine is a wetland and is supporting a pretty impressive tulip poplar population. The trail is marked at eighteen feet wide, and is going to be created with a bulldozer. Since this trail runs right parallel to a brook, (within 2 ft of it at a few points), and contains this population, it has created a high level of ire with the citizens. The creation of these nice trails in other parks in the area resulted in an influx of ORV use on them. Illegal ORV use is already a problem in this park, and moving that issue to a sensitive environment defies logic. The current trail they are abusing has some erosion, but is very treatable. In any event, the other areas also are showing regeneration. Some of the seedlings will certainly become deer food, but due to the numbers present this year, many will survive. There is evidence they are spreading beyond the ravines to some of the adjacent flat land as well. The ongoing research will yield a good number of clues as to why they are thriving so well in this park, VS anyplace else. Ray Weber The Weekend    Robert Leverett    May 29, 2007 06:34 PDT  ENTS,      On Saturday Ray Weber and I showed Dr. Karen Searcy around Robinson SP. She will be doing a plant diversity survey for the Natural heritage Program in the period June -Oct. In making the rounds, there were no new tuliptree discoveries, but a slender oak trying to compete with the tulips on a rich site proved to be a new oak height champion for Robinson SP. Although a mere 4.8 feet around, the oak soars to 119.4 feet. The oak pushes Robinson SP's Rucker index up to 118.9. Ray also showed me a quite respectable American sycamore in West Springfield at 108 feet in height at 14.2 feet in girth. A very old eastern cottonwood close by, probably a double, measures 18.7 feet around and is 97.2 feet tall. The probable fusion of two trunks splits at about 7 feet. Bob Robert T. Leverett Cofounder, Eastern Native Tree Society   Home