Broadbrook Rucker Indexes  
  

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TOPIC: Broadbrook Rucker Indexes
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/4248af3cfe31bda7?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Wed, Oct 8 2008 9:36 pm
From: dbhguru@comcast.net


ENTS,

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon measuring trees in the Broadbrook corridor, a 100-acre swath that includes our backyard. The season's new growth has raised the RHI10 to 115.5. That's pretty impressive. In fact, it presently ranks 3rd in the Connecticut River Valley. Robinson SP is first at 118.9, Mt Tom State Reservation is second at 115.6, and Broadbrook is third.

Species     Height Circumference   DOM-Last
white pine 137.2 14.9 10/8/2008
tuliptree 129.4 6.8 8/28/2008
e. hemlock 120 8.1 9/16/2007
pignut hickory 119.4 6.6 10/8/2008
n. red oak 110.7 5.5 11/5/2006
white oak 109.7 6.9 5/5/2007
black birch 108.7 6.4 10/8/2008
scarlet oak 107.4 7.3 10/15/2005
sugar maple 106.5 6.9 5/5/2007
white ash 105.5 4.5 2/12/2006
Rucker Index 115.5 7.4  


The profile of the index at 10, 15, and 20 species is as follows.

Index      # Trees

115.5        10
110.4        15
102.2        20

Two trees that I think are exceptional in the Broadbrook corridor are the hop hornbeam that just makes 78.0 feet and the black birch at 108.7 feet. I still can't believe the 78-foot hop hornbeam grows within about 300 feet of our back door. A lone pitch pine not far from the hop hornbeam reaches 89.3 feet in height and is a skinny 4.8 feet in girth. The black birch is about a quarter mile away. BTW, the tallest tree, the white pine, is a double. A nearby single-stemmed pine measures 11.3 feet around and 120.0 feet in height. Those dimensions give the big pine 1532 ENTS points (C^2*H/10).
When most of the leaves have fallen, I'll be able to update the index further. At this point, the canopy is too dense to remeasure most of the trees comprising the three Rucker indexes.

Bob