| Mohawk
Trail State Forest Update |
Robert
Leverett |
| Jun
23, 2002 19:33 PDT |
Hello
Everyone:
Today I did
saturation measuring of trees in MTSF. I wanted to
update Colby Rucker's Top 10 list and also remeasure the tallest
Algonquin
Pines. [ MTSF is located in western Massachusetts. More
specifically, it is 22 miles west of the town of Greenfield on
state Route #2, known as the Mohawk Trail. Part of MTSF faces
the Deerfield River and the mountains there form part of the
Deerfield River Gorge. Altitude changes from the top of the
Todd-Clark ridge line in MTSF to the Deerfield River are between
900 and 1,200 feet. Another part of MTSF is cut by the Cold
River, a tributary of the Deerfield. The Cold River Gorge
exhibits a 800 to 1,000 foot vertical change in elevation from
ridge line to river. Thus, the topography of MTSF is rather
dramatic relative to most of the Berkshire uplands, which is
more plateau than mountains. The great forest of Mohawk, of
which I frequently write, grows primarily on the boulder fields
and toe slopes of the ridges and on the outwash terraces of the
two rivers. One encounters moderate to stunted trees on the
ridgelines to large, very tall trees at the bottoms of the
ridges. It would be hard to overstate the degree of change in
vegetation structure from ridge top to river.]
================================================================
ENTS Top Ten:
Species Height Circumference Tree
Name
Comments
in
ft in
ft
White Pine 162.1* 10.1 Jake
Swamp Tallest tree in New England
White Ash 147.4* 9.4 Ash
Queen Tallest white ash in Northeast
Sugar Maple 136.2* 11.5 No
Name Tallest in New England
American Beech 128.7* 7.6 No
Name Tallest in New England
N. Red Oak 127.0* 9.4 John
Knuerr Tallest in MA
E. Hemlock 125.8 7.8 No
Name
Bitternut Hickory 124.6* 3.4 No
Name Tallest in MA
Red Maple 121.4* 6.5 No
Name Tallest in MA
Bigtooth Aspen 121.0* 4.3 No
Name Tallest in MA
American Basswood 116.4* 6.5 No
Name Tallest in MA
* Champion
============================================
Average height for top 10:
131.06 feet. Of all big tree/tall parks in the Northeast lying
at or above
latitude 41 degrees, MTSF is currently #1. As we do additional
work in Cook
Forest, PA, Zoar Valley, NY, and perhaps a few other sites, MTSF
may lose
its #1 spot, but it is extremely doubtful that it will lose to
any other New
England site. Farther north tree height comes down dramatically,
except for
white pine.
=============================================
Other height champions in MTSF include
Black Birch 112.2* 5.9 No
Name Tallest in MA
White Birch 102.3* 4.9 No
Name Tallest in MA
Yellow Birch 101.2* 4.7 No
Name Tallest in MA
Hop Hornbeam 72.0* 4.0 No
Name Tallest in New England
==============================================
White Pines over 150 feet in Massachusetts
Property Area No.
White Pines
Over
150
feet
DEM Properties
MTSF Trees
of Peace 10
MTSF Algonquin
Pines 8
(2 new ones as of
today)
MTSF Elders
Grove 4
MTSF Pocumtuck
Pines 2
MTSF Shunpike
Pines 2
(26 total)
MSF Dunbar
Brook 1 (1
total)
OTHER
Bryant Estate Tall Pine Grove 4 (4
total)
Ice Glen South
Pine Grove 2 (
2 total)
===============================================
===============================================
Complete Listing of 150-foot white pines in MTSF and MSF
Tree Name Location Height
Jake Swamp Trees
of Peace 162.1
Joe Norton Trees
of Peace 160.4
John Brown Trees
of Peace 154.1
Tom Porter Trees
of Peace 153.6
Choctaw Trees
of Peace 153.2
Curan Eagleman Trees of Peace 151.9
Arvol Looking H. Trees of Peace 151.7
Mast Trees
of Peace 151.2
Callibration Trees
of Peace 150.3
Clutter Trees
of Peace 150.0
Algonquin Algonquin 156.6
L. Frank Decontie Algonquin 153.1
Trail Algonquin 152.7
Frank Decontie Algonquin 152.2
Brightside Algonquin 151.2
Middle Algonquin 150.8
W. Commanda Algonquin 150.6
Bear Algonquin 150.3
Saheda Elders 159.6
Tecumseh Elders 157.6
Little Saheda Elders 152.6
Crazy Horse Elders 151.7
Metacomet Pocumtuck 150.9
Unnamed Pocumtuck 151.7
Oneida Shunpike 154.4
Brant Shunpike 153.3
Thoreau Dunbar
Brook 156.2
=========================================
Bob
|
| MTSF
RULES |
Robert
Leverett |
| Aug
18, 2002 16:22 PDT |
Ents:
Like Yogi Berra used to say, "It
ain't over till it's over." Well, that
has proven to be the case with our Mohawk Trail State Forest.
John Knuerr,
Kim Jensen, and I went to Ash Flats today to begin collecting
site data. Ash
Flats is the largest of three old river terraces on the south
side of Clark
Ridge. The Flats are dominated principally by 3 species: white
ash, sugar
maple, and red oak. Bitternut hickory plays a role in a limited
area of the
Flats and there are isolated beech, yellow and black birch, and
American
basswood. The uphill side of the flats is completely dominated
by the ash.
The oaks take over on the down hill side. Young sugar maple are
wide spread
and will eventually replace the ash, unless there is a
disturbance. The ages
of the trees range from saplings up to about 120 years, with
most of the
mature trees between 65 and 110 years. The growth rates of the
ash trees is
phenomenal. Other species grow rapidly, but it is the ash trees
that
dominate. The herb layer suggests circumneutral soils. There are
plenty of
rich woods species scattered around.
The first bit of news came when John
Knuerr spotted what appeared to be
a black oak. There is a little black oak in MTSF on the south
facing side of
the Todd-Clark ridge, but until today, I'd never found anything
worth
reporting. We first identified black oak on an outing with
Hampshire College
students. I seldom even think about the black oak, because it is
scrawny.
John's tree has set me to thinking. I suspect that the swath of
oaks up in
the dry zone of the ridge, well above ash flats, has a component
of black
oak and our stray black oak at ash flats, or more probably a
black-red
hybrid, owes its existence to the vegetation higher up on the
ridge. The
bark all the way to the top says black oak, but the acorns are
more to the
red end of the scale. We may have to reverse the call on the
species, but
since it appears to be more black than red, we're calling it
black. It is
also 110.5 feet tall! Its circumference is a spindly 4.8 feet,
but we'll
take it. We'll take it. So, the black oak becomes MTSF's 13th
height
champion, replacing the black oak at Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary.
The black
oak also becomes the 18th native species to top 100 feet in MTSF.
Not too
shabby.
One of the reasons we went to Ash Flats
was to check on the height
growth of the ash trees. I had been back only once since Will
Blozan and I
visited the west end of the site in November 1998. Well, the
height growth
since then has been amazing. John Knuerr, a fairly conservative
person, was
amazed. Here are the heights solidly confirmed today.
Species Height Circumference
White ash 144.8' 6.7'
White ash 144.5' 8.3'
White ash 141.1' 5.8'
N. red oak 120.1' 8.1'
Bitternut H. 118.6' 7.7'
Black oak 110.5' 4.8'
I measured several other ash trees at
between 131 and 135 feet and a
couple in the mid-120s, but didn't record them. I plan to
exhaustively
measure the stand when the weather turns cool. I suspect there
is at least
one more 140-footer in Ash Flats and 130+ footers are now
common. Growth
rates have been between 1.5 and 2 feet per year, since Will and
I visited
the stand in 1998.
I did most of my original measuring of
the stand in 1996-1998. At that
time the ash canopy averaged around 125 feet. That figure now is
at least
133 feet. The ash growth is so rapid that the other species
behave as though
they have just given up competing. At the present, I have no
other
explanation. I usually expect bitternut hickory to run a better
race. We
need to get a chemical composition of the rock at Ash Flats.
That just has
to be done. We need to solve the riddle of the super growth.
With the confirmation of these new
140-footers, MTSF now boasts 8
hardwoods over 140 feet in height, all white ashes and all in
MTSF. In fact
the 17 tallest hardwoods in MA are all white ash trees and had I
more time,
I could raise that number to probably 25. So far I've measured
45 white ash
trees to a height of 130 feet or more in MA, spread over 7
distinct sites,
representing 3 separate properties. However, the total number of
130-footers
has to be at least double what I've measured and there are far
too many over
120 to count. White ash rules, as Bob Van Pelt would say.
When the weather cools, it will be a
return to Ash Flats and perhaps a
general search across an area of the Clark Ridge that cover
about 75 acres,
but is spread over a distance of 1.5 miles.
Bob |
| Mohawk
Trail State Forest |
Robert
Leverett |
| Sep
28, 2002 17:40 PDT |
Colby,
Dale, Will, et. al:
Neil Pederson of Columbia University's
Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory
and I spent several hours on Clark Ridge today in MTSF. Neil
wanted to core
a few northern red oaks and was particularly interested in fast
growing
oaks. The ones Neil cored are second growth trees and all appear
to be
between 95 and 115 years of age. Neil will know for certain when
he gets
back to his laboratory to get exact counts.
In the past, I ignored the northern red
oaks in MTSF. I'm not sure why.
I suppose that the white ashes, sugar maples, and white pines
had me
transfixed. As a result, to date I've accurately measured only
19 oaks on
the Todd-Clark Ridge in Mohawk. Yet there are thousands of
handsome oaks
growing in Mohawk. So I've not even scratched the surface. The
oaks that
I've measured are summarized below.
Colby, please take a look at entry #1.
Yes, it is a new record for New
England and it brings the Rucker Site Index for Mohawk up to
132.53! I
suppose that the sheer number of tall oaks growing in Mohawk
made eventually
breaking the 130-foot threshold a high probability and it
happened today.
The following list consists of the
northern red oaks that I've measured
to date in MTSF.
Height Circumference DOM
130.3 7.0 28-Sep-02
127.0 9.2 22-Jun-02
125.2 7.2 28-Sep-02
123.7 6.9 28-Jul-01
120.2 8.1 18-Aug-02
116.3 7.1 28-Sep-02
116.1 7.4 22-Jul-01
115.8 6.2 28-Sep-02
115.2 6.7 28-Jul-02
114.9 7.2 28-Sep-02
113.7 5.9 28-Sep-02
111.5 7.6 28-Sep-02
110.2 6.3 28-Sep-02
110.1 11.6 01-Nov-96
108.5 6.9 28-Jul-02
106.1 7.2 28-Sep-02
105.0 7.9 28-Sep-02
96.5 8.2 28-Sep-02
88.4 5.6 28-Sep-02
The 130-foot NRO brings the total number of
species in MTSF that break
130 feet to 4. I've attached an updated spreadsheet for MTSF.
The dominance of MTSF, Monroe State
Forest, Ice Glen, Mount Greylock,
William Cullen Bryant Homestead, and Mount Tom State Reservation
in the
Massachusetts tall tree wars may or may not come as a surprise
to good tree
people. However, the dominance of MTSF in the region of latitude
41 degrees
north and higher is a legitimate surprise to everyone. Neil and
I talked
about that today. What is the answer? We don't know. A
combination of Lee
Frelich's and Tom Wessel's explanations may represent the
answer. But we
really don't know.
One question that arises is: does the
Mohawk forest of today reflect the
forest potential within the vicinity of Charlemont and Shelburne
Falls, MA;
i.e. can northern red oaks commonly reach a 28 to 30 inch
diameter and a 100
to 115-foot height in 100 years without silviculture and still
be putting on
good growth at the end of the period? Most of the trees that
Neil cored
showed rapid growth over the last decade. These trees still have
a lot of
growing left to do. In Mohawk today, 100-foot tall oaks are
common as weeds.
A small percentage of the oaks exceed 120 feet in height and now
I can state
that a tiny percentage reach 130 feet for the 28-30-inch
diameter range.
From these figures, can we safely conclude that the early forest
was at
least scattered with 3-foot diameter oaks pushing 130 feet in
height? If so,
that would have been a compelling sight.
Looking backward is speculation, but
from a practical standpoint, today
what is the growth expectation for northern red oak in the
central
Berkshires? If the Mohawk trees that Neil cored are an
indication, the fast
growth period for many oaks does not end in a 100 years. I would
imagine
that for the trees we measured today good, fast growth could be
sustained
for another 20 to 40 years years. The trees are in prime shape
and led a
consulting forester to say that the area was the most impressive
Massachusetts forest that he had seen (in the sense of potential
being
realized, I think). If we allow for 130 years of steady growth
as a
compromise and then project the average growth rate we observed
today to
this age, diameters of most trees would reach 36 inches and
heights would
commonly reach 120 feet. A few trees would be over 125 feet and
a very few
over 130. These diameter projections are not unreasonable based
on what I've
seen in a 130-year old oak stand near Bear Swamp Reservoir.
However, I think
the Bear Swamp trees are more commonly 100 to 112 feet tall.
What about white ash? Well, for trees in
the 130-year age range, we
could probably expect 33 inch diameters and 125 to 135 foot
heights. A few
trees would be over 140 feet in height and a very few over 145.
The super
ash trees would branch at between 70 and 80 feet. Basal areas
would
routinely run from 140 to 210 square feet per acre.
Are these kinds of data useful to
silviculturists? That's not for me to
say, but from what I've seen in discussions of silviculture in
the
Massachusetts forestry lists, growth expectations seem to me to
be low.
Often very low. Perhaps this stems from applying broad averages
and poorly
developed fomulas, such as Karl describes, to the forests of
western
Massachusetts. Or perhaps it stems from tired, over-worked
forest lands
characterized by poor management or no management at all. But I
often get
the impression even from some good private foresters in western
Mass that
they're doing the forest a favor just by leaving an occasional
24-inch
diameter tree after marking a stand. Based on the forests that I
tramp,
through, I believe that a well managed forest on rich Berkshire
sites should
have no shortage of 24-28 inch diameter trees. At this size, the
oaks in
MTSF on the Todd-Clark ridge are still cranking.
Bob |
|