| MTSF
red oak growth |
Dee
& Neil Pederson |
| Apr
25, 2004 09:09 PDT |
Hi Bob,
Sorry for the delay to your email. I was out of town summarizing
a
network of red oak radial growth data, including the Shunpike
area of
Clark Ridge.
Some of the red oak from Shunpike are showing some strong upward
trends in growth, especially in the last decade. Some have
narrowing
ring widths, as is typical of many tree-ring records. Narrowing
rings
widths do not necessarily mean slowing growth. Putting a
constant
amount of growth around an increasing diameter has to results in
narrower radial increments.
I'll send a jpeg to Ed Frank for posting on the ENTS web site
for
ENTS who are interested in seeing the various trends in growth
among
the red oak I sampled at MTSF. The graph shows all raw radial
growth
series [40+] and the population mean. The population mean is a
red
thick line. The individual series are represented by thinner,
black
lines. If you try to interpret each line, it is messy graph.
Just
concentrate on the "general" trends and the average.
This is preliminary data and needs a good bit more quantitative
analysis. I will gladly share the final analysis with ENTS once
it is
published. I share this now so my initial glance at the cores
can be
put in context. Kurt Vonnegut repeatedly used an old joke that
applies here. I'll cut to the punch line: hold on to your hats,
we
[this analysis] could end up a long way from here.
Neil
| |
Lee:
In the case of MTSF, in addition
to the old growth, we are fortunate
to have second growth stands from very young to very
mature available
for us to study and none of the areas have received the
periodic
massacring that private lands so commonly have to
endure. Several of the
Mohawk stands of interest have gotten a kind of second
wind and are
growing rapidly both radially and vertically. I'm unsure
of whether this
is climate-induced or part of a natural pattern. The
rapid radial growth
of the northern red oaks in the Shunpike area of Clark
Ridge that Neil
Pederson verified is an example of this second wind. The
oaks are
growing radially now faster than they were at half their
age. They are
presently between 100 and 130 years old...
Bob
Leverett
|
|
Preliminary MTSF Spaghetti Plot
|
