Bob,

Congratulations on finding another tall pine over 140.  I have been thinking 
about how to deal with Rucker Indexes along the lines Jess suggested - i.e. 
plotting a rucker height index on a graph versus increasing area.  I am 
wondering if it would be appropriate when comparing rucker indexes of sites 
within a larger area such as the Connecticut River Valley with the area of the 
valley itself or whether it would be better to just compare the individual 
sites to the composite area of the patches included in the overall rucker 
index?  What I am saying is that much of the area of the valley contribute 
nothing to the rucker index as it has been cut over and farmed again  and 
again, so should these non-contributing areas be included in the rucker index 
area of valley as a whole?   Since the measurements are made from a patch of 
sites here and there, should not the area for the valley just consider the area 
of those patches.

I have been talking to Dale about compiling a species profile for the Clarion 
River corridor (defining it to basically just include the flood plains and 
flats, rather than the entire drainage basin).  If all of the species were 
listed in a single table along with the heights of the tallest ( or fattest) 
examples of those species, then you could more easily see what gaps there were 
in the information, what trees were missing, or represented by undersized 
specimens, etc.  I should have did this before my river trip Thursday with 
Carl, and I know I would have grabbed some measurements of trees, which were 
unspectacular in terms of Cook Forest, but would have contributed to the 
Clarion River corridor.  This is something that should be considered for other 
broader reaches which are initially a composite of pieces of other sites.  The 
main problem with the Clarion River stuff is that Dale has all of the data, so 
any scheme I come up with, means more work for poor Dale.  

Ed Frank

Join me in the Eastern Native Tree Society at http://www.nativetreesociety.org
and in the Primal Forests - Ancient Trees Community at:  
http://primalforests.ning.com/ 
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