Trip Reports/Rucker Indexes/Future   Edward Frank   Mar 03, 2005 17:13 PST  ENTS, I have been looking over our large accumulation of trip reports compiled over the last several years by ENTS members. Let say upfront that I think a good detailed description of a particular site is as important as getting tree measurements. I will continue to encourage people who visit a worthwhile site to post a description of the site to the discussion list, even if they did not take any tree height or girth measurements. One of the goals of the group however is still to document tall trees on these sites using our accurate measurement methodologies. A stalwart measure we try to compile for a site is a Rucker Index (RI). This is the average height of the tallest individual of each of the ten tallest species found on the site. Measurement of additional trees allows us to look in greater detail at each of these sites. We can caculate multiple iterations of the RI, and look at how other shorter species fit into the picture of the site. I started looking at the trip reports published on the website. I choose Georgia as a test example, basically because we had only a few trip reports from the area. Of the thirteen sites for which we had reports. ten had tree measurements. A pretty good percentage, especially considering that I crop out, even a mention of a different site written as an aside, as a separate page on the website. Of the remaining ten sites, only three had sufficient numbers of measurements to calculate a 10 species Rucker Index. I went back through the reports to see how many would support a limited rucker index consisting of five species (RI5). Four additional sites, plus the three with 10 species index, had sufficient measurements to calculate a RI5 index. Of the remaining three sites, two of them had measurements of just 4 species. The last had five species, but did not include the tallest on the site. I started a table for Pennsylvania, but it is not finished yet. I actually would like to see a broader measurement where possible that includes as large a number of species as possible from a site. I am joining the measurement club and will try my best to paractice what I preach. I want to suggest that we try to calculate RI5 indexes for all sites for which we have sufficient measurements, and continue to calculate standard RI for all site for which we have sufficient measurements. The addition of the RI index would allow a comparison of a wider number of sites. What do the rest of you think? Ed Frank   Home