White Oak Threshold

White Oak Threshold	dbhg-@comcast.net
	Oct 19, 2003 08:18 PDT

Will, Randy, et. al.:

The problem with other people's lists is that you can't exercise adequate quality control over them, which for ENTS purposes is a fatal flaw.

On another subject, yesterday I was doing a joint program with Dr. Lynn Rogers at MTSF (He'll be back with us at the Forest Summit on Oct 23rd). This was the third such program we've done together at Mohawk. It is always an honor for me to be able to accompany Lynn.

Lynn was doing his usual superb job and holding the attention of attendees, who flood him with questions. We walk a few feet and discuss talk, walk a few feet and talk. It gives me the opportunity to also observe patterns of vegetation and on occasion, spot a new big tree, such as a 11.7-foot circumference white pine in the Encampment area. Where did that one come from?

At one stop Lynn was answering a question about bear behavoir that led to an extended discussion. My attention drifted upward from ground to crown and I spied the broad crowns of several white oaks. The shurb layer in the vicinity was thick with mountain laurel. Well, while the group was riveted to Lynn's discussion of bear vs human encounters, I snuck off through the laurel to check out the white oaks. One oak held the potential to break 100 feet. Was this to be the day?

   An attendee of the group from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service accompanied me and we discussed measurement methodology. He was a forester by background, so he had a keen interest in tree measuring. Well to make a long story short, I measured the oak from several vantage points, repeatedly shooting 5 major tops. The best I could do for any of them was 98.9 feet. Believe me, I was straining for 100. I could taste the century mark, but alas, it wasn't to be. The final tale of the tape was a height of 98.9 ft and a girth of 8.2 feet, which brings me to a point.

    The upper limit of the white oaks in Mohawk seems to be just under 100 feet. It is now very clear that in Mohawk, red oak growth out performs white oak growth by 20 to 30 feet of height and 1 to 3 feet in girth. What the explanation is, I don't know. Nor do I know if these differentials are maintained in other areas of the Berkshires where the two species are found growing together. My sense is that they are maintained fairly closely for the girth, but drop to about 10 to 20 for height. In the Connecticut River Valley, the differential is clearly there, but hasn't been tied down numerically. So far, the best for northern red oak height I've done in the Connecticut River Valley is 115.0 feet in the Black Stevens Conservation Area in South Hadley. A Mount Tom white oak makes it to 111.3 according to a past measurement I made. The tree has since lost height. It is presently about 107 feet. But taken over the average of the 10 tallest for each species in the Valley, the differential between red and white height probably runs a solid 10 to 15 feet.

   The idea of establishing height and girth differentials for a selection of species over a broad range of geographical regions has intrigued me for a long time. heretofore, we just haven't had the data to draw reliable conclusions. However, an ENTS project has been evolving to research these differentials, courtesy of Dr. Lee Frelich's interest in the subject. I must leave the real analysis and the conclusions about what drives the magnitude of the differentials to Lee. His understanding of the independent variables to track is far, far advanced to my own. I see my role as providing Lee with accurate data to analyze. I know my place in this project. But, I find the project increasingly fascinating and fun. I seldom leave the house without measuring gear.

   Our latest focus for Mohawk is on gathering climate data. We're gradually moving toward the installation of devices to record temperature. Precipitation isn't far behind. Ideally, we would get someone in the Charlemont area committed to the idea of determining the local climate in Mohawk, but so far we haven't had any luck in finding a reliable data collector. The people who run the campground are the logical ones to do it. They are right there. They will be the one's we will probably need to turn to. Will they do the job reliably? With some training, I think they will. They just have to be sold on the idea of why it's important. Well, let's see. Suppose there were a Denny Moore tree, a Jake Shulda Tree, an Isabelle's tree. Wouldn't they want to know how their trees were doing? What was making them grow so well? Hmmm.

Bob

RE: White Oak Threshold	Joseph Zorzin
	Oct 19, 2003 12:07 PDT

dbhg-@comcast.net wrote:

Although they're both oaks, there is no reason to think that their
growth charateristics should be similar, so it's not at all unusual to
find such differences. White oak in central New England is near the edge
of its range, so it won't be as good as further south and west. (JZ)

Nor do I know if these differentials are maintained in other areas of
the Berkshires where the two species are found growing together.

All over the Berskhires, white oak is an inferior species in terms of
size and health and age it can reach, and shape and soundness with
respect to lumbering purposes, once again since this is the nearing the
edge of white oak's territory, but the Berkshires is near the core of
the red oak range, at least in terms of quality lumber. I've never seen
a stand dominated by white oak in the Berkshires, it's usually just an
small part of any stand, while red oak is often the dominate species.
(JZ)

My sense is that they are maintained fairly closely for the girth, but
drop to about 10 to 20 for height. In the Connecticut River Valley, the
differential is clearly there, but hasn't been tied down numerically. So
far, the best for northern red oak height I've done in the Connecticut
River Valley is 115.0 feet in the Black Stevens Conservation Area in
South Hadley. A Mount Tom white oak makes it to 111.3 according to a
past measurement I made. The tree has since lost height. It is presently
about 107 feet. But taken over the average of the 10 tallest for each
species in the Valley, the differential between red and white height
probably runs a solid 10 to 15 feet.

    The idea of establishing height and girth differentials for a selection
    of species over a broad range of geographical regions has intrigued me
    for a long time. heretofore, we just haven't had the data to draw
    reliable conclusions.

And of course, taking data from what's out there now doesn't say a great
deal about what the full potential is, it only gives a clue. But, most
likely, nobody else is even thinking of such issues, so I commend you
for doing so. Trying to get good data from an extremely damaged forest
ecosystem is a tough problem. As you once said, one of your goals is to
find out what the potential is, doing so from what scanty data you can
find, which is a great reason to justify maintaining what little old
growth remains. (JZ)

However, an ENTS project has been evolving to research these
differentials, courtesy of Dr. Lee Frelich's interest in the subject. I
must leave the real analysis and the conclusions about what drives the
magnitude of the differentials to Lee. His understanding of the
independent variables to track is far, far advanced to my own. I see my
role as providing Lee with accurate data to analyze. I know my place in
this project. But, I find the project increasingly fascinating and fun.
I seldom leave the house without measuring gear.

I can see the difficulty- it's comarable to the work done by
evolutionists- who often have only a small number of fossils to work
with. I've heard that the total number of early human bones would not
overflow a small closet, yet so much has been learned- those fossils are
priceless, and so are old growth and the great speciman trees. (JZ)

    Our latest focus for Mohawk is on gathering climate data. We're
    gradually moving toward the installation of devices to record
    temperature. Precipitation isn't far behind. Ideally, we would get
    someone in the Charlemont area committed to the idea of determining the
    local climate in Mohawk, but so far we haven't had any luck in finding a
    reliable data collector. The people who run the campground are the
    logical ones to do it. They are right there. They will be the one's we
    will probably need to turn to. Will they do the job reliably? With some
    training, I think they will. They just have to be sold on the idea of
    why it's important. Well, let's see. Suppose there were a Denny Moore
    tree, a Jake Shulda Tree, an Isabelle's tree. Wouldn't they want to know
    how their trees were doing? What was making them grow so well? Hmmm.

genetics, local conditions, competition, luck and many other factors-
it's possible that the same tree, if its seedling had fallen 20' to one
side of where it did fall, might not have done so well, if it had been
overtoped- there are so many variables and who knows what the
interaction of those variables is? (JZ)

Bob

Joe Zorzin

Re: Allelopathy - observations of Colby	dbhg-@comcast.net
	Oct 19, 2003 15:37 PDT

ENTS:

Colby has given us another jewel. Before commenting further, I wanted to share it with everyone. There is lots to pursue here.

Bob

===================================================================
Bob,

Your comments on a ceiling for white oaks at MFSP were quite interesting. Although I often stress the importance of "location, location, location," the nuances of habitat within those locations is best known to us by forest types and indicator species, so perhaps I should say, "association, association, association."
I stumbled into something on the Internet that seemed interesting (run a search on "allelopath" + "chestnut"). It seems that a paper by David E. Flora (1977) touched on allelopathy, as did one several years ago by Vandermast, Van Lear & Clinton. The latter group soaked seeds of red maple, tuliptree, e. wh. pine, e. hemlock, & rosebay rhododendron in a tea of chestnut leaves, and found the last two species' germination was zapped. From that they made a rather extreme conclusion - hemlock and chestnut didn't coexist due to allelopathy (ignoring that one's a ridge species, the other's probably dependent on mossy habitat for germination). Further, they concluded that the alarming spread of rhododendron is due to the absence of chestnut.
Well, it's all interesting, at least as a reminder that walnuts zap tomatoes, etc. Apparently a number of trees are considered to be allelopaths - black walnut, hackberry, sycamore, eucalyptsus, sassafras, American chestnut and eastern hemlock. All that said, I imagine there's a good deal of buffering in nature, and also many ways in which chemicals produced by one plant affect others. Germination is probably but one of many.
I'm still intrigued by a situation at the edge of the big tree grove at Corcoran Woods. There was a big spreading black walnut that I wanted to measure, but it was surrounded by a dense barrier of multiflora rose. At last, on the shady side toward the grove, I found a small opening, and made my way in. Once inside, the roses were absent, as were most other species. I was rather surprised to see numerous smooth-barked shrubs, each having stems up to several inches thick, but very little height, as if each had been stepped on by an elephant years before, and their decumbent habit had continued.
For a moment I thought it was a species new to me, perhaps some kind of willow or dogwood, until I realized they were spicebushes, quite old, heavy-stemmed, broad-spreading, but of completely different habit. The near absence of other species had allowed them to survive in their lowly stature, but it also seemed that some factor besides considerable shade had affected their ability to venture upwards.
A large hickory, perhaps a pignut, stood perhaps sixty feet from the walnut, and I walked to it without encountering the multiflora rose barrier. Here grew an old spicebush, also shaded, but outside the walnut's drip-line. In the rich soils, this had a single trunk, considerable spread and a height of over 24 feet, making it a Maryland champion, and one of the tallest yet found anywhere.
Well, we'd need a whole bunch of walnuts and a zillion spicebushes to reach any real conclusions, but it does seem that there are many factors affecting tree distribution and height. Anyway, let's take a second look at some of our trees of record height, and see what special surrounding factors might be relevant - not only location, but also "association, association, association."

Colby

RE: White Oak Threshold	dbhg-@comcast.net
	Oct 19, 2003 16:02 PDT

Joe:

At this point the input variables are way to many for my simple brain to juggle, so data collection will continue, probably indefinitely. Still, I think useful tidbits can emerge as we go about our daily collecting, one tidbit may be to substantiate a general level of forest degradation in Massachusetts that continues to occur. I actively look for the best growing sites from which to collect data. Sometimes, I'm dealing with small areas. Regardless, the good sites are invariably ones with good soil and water. If the trees on such a site have gained enough age, 80 - 100 years, their dimensions probably reflect the growing conditions pretty faithfully. What I can't tell is if the trees reflect the full genetic heritage of the species or a reduced one.

While we are reaching toward the northeastern limit of white oak, curiously it makes it into Canada in the vivinity of Lake Erie. In terms of the center of development of red oak, it appears to have a large area where development is excellent. Consider, the oaks Will Blozan measure in Fairmount Park. Also the species shows excellent development in western New York and Pennsylvania. Here I'm not referring to percent composition, just tree development.

Here's a question for our friend in West Virginia. Russ, how would you rate red oak development in West Virginia versus Massachusetts for growth potential and wood quality?

Re: Allelopathy - observations of Colby	Don Bertolette
	Oct 19, 2003 18:21 PDT

Colby/Bob-
Add ponderosa pine to your "allelopathy list". I had been considering
ponderosa pines tendency to change the pH (or some complex extractive
chemical balance) of the soil/duff layer as being functionally allelopathic.
While some colleagues have disagreed with me, there are increasing
indications that such allelopathy exists. Our understory folks at the canyon
have been struggling to determine why ponderosa pine forest ecosystems are
so depauperate, understory species-wise. My current hypothesis is
allelopathy.
-Don

Re: White Oak Threshold	Fores-@aol.com
	Oct 20, 2003 06:46 PDT

Bob:

I can say that I have never actually measured the heights of some of the
tallest red oak trees I have encountered. I have sold a number of red oak trees
that had over 100 feet of merchantable height in sawlogs. In a tree that big
it would likely mean a 14" tip because anything smaller would normally fracture
and shatter into unmerchantable pieces when it hit the ground! The largest
red oak I have ever sold had a circumference of approximately 15.2 feet. The
tree had 120 growth rings at stump (ground) level. On that property, I left
larger and better Legacy trees!

In West Virginia, red oak can grow to proportions I would have never imagined
when I worked in New England.

I know you remember the patch of red oak at my parents farm in Shelburne.
That is about the largest and highest quality red oak I have for comparison to
what I encounter in WV but here follows.

There is great variability in how RO grows in the state with the very highest
quality and most valuable red oak coming from the mountain counties of
eastern West Virginia. In those areas, on the very best sites, red oak will have
what appears to be juvenile bark for up to 80 or possibly 100 years. In those
areas it is very rare to encounter any sawtimber sized red oak with less than
50 feet (three logs) of very high quality lumber with 65 to 80 feet of quality
logs far more likely. In those areas, stands that are 35 to 40% red oak can
be found with volumes over 15,000 board feet per acre common for 60-70 year old
stands. Sustained growth rates of 4 rings per inch are common.

In the western and central part of the state where I am the trees are
different and typically average between 40 and 65 feet of high quality wood with
56-60 feet (3.5 logs) far more likely. However, in the western or central part of
the state, diameter growth is normally faster with 3 rings per inch very
common with dominant red oaks typically growing annual rings that are .4 inches or
.8" per year diameter growth.

Veneer buyers like the somewhat slower growth of the mountain red oak and the
price is comparatively higher.

In terms of growing the stuff. There are all sorts of variations. There are
places where the RO regeneration is fantastic with literally hundreds of
stems per acre with other places where there are none.......depends upon how many
times it has been high graded.

Russ

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