Turner,
Bravo and a big t hanks from all of us . We need more West Virginia sites to put that region, and in general, the high growth areas of the eastern forest biome, into true perspective. Thanks to Will, Jess, and Michael Davie, w e know the southern Appalachians are literally off the charts. Thanks to those of us in the upper latitudes, w e know the northern Appalachians are, for the most part, unimpressive, and the farther north we go, the more unimpressive they become. So we have a pretty good tall tree picture from the ends of the spectrum, b ut what of middle? We have a large gap. In particular, t he central Appalachians of WV are a mystery. It isn't that we don't have any data from the center - far from it. We are getting excellent coverage of Pennsylvania, just to the north of WV , thanks to that stellar ENTS PA A-team. But WV has always been held out as the land of promise, thanks to Russ's excellent reports. Unfortunately, our actual data from WV are so skimpy that the entire Mountaineer State lives more in our collective imagination than as a reality. I t is both exci ting and gratifying when a new site located anywhere is added to the ENTS Rucker inventory, but especially exciting when a new site helps to fills a conspicous gap in our eastern tall tree coverage. So, t hanks from all of us, your fellow and lady Ents. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "turner" <[email protected]> To: "ENTSTrees" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009 12:31:56 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] McDonough Wildlife Preserve Rucker Index ENTS: This winter I was able to measure enough trees in on a tract to develop a Rucker Index. The tract is a portion of the McDonough Wildlife Preserve in the City Of Vienna, Wood County, West Virginia. The entire Preserve contains 377 acres, and was give to the city in 1980 with wishes that it be a wildlife preserve. Bernard McDonough had owned the land since the 1930’s and much (70%?) of it had previously been cleared for farming purposes. He let this acreage revert to woodland. The other 30%?, which was composed of the steeper and rockier areas has probably always been in woodland although heavily impacted by timber cutting, oil/gas drilling, and fires and lately recreation. Even though it is called a preserve, it is managed more like a city park with picnic areas, paved walking trails, parking lots, restrooms, etc. I covered an area on the north end of the preserve which overlooks the Pond Creek Valley and is bisected mid slope by the Main Loop Trail. It contains about 100 acres. This section has a mostly north to northeast aspect and is cut by three small drainages/ravines. The elevation difference is about 180 feet from 830 feet at ridge top to 650 adjacent to Pond Creek. All the trees that comprise this index are below 700 elevation feet and most are in the ravines. SPECIES CBH HT Yellow-poplar L. tulipifera 8.1 137.0 Northern Red Oak Q. rubra 10.4 122.7 Shagbark Hickory C. ovata 109.2 Chestnut Oak Q. prinus 7.8 108.1 White Ash F. americana 5.7 106.7 5 species index = 116.7 Pignut ? Hickory C. glabra 102.9 Sugar Maple A .saccaharum 4.8 102.0 American Beech F. grandifolia 6.1 101.6 White Oak Q. alba 6.1 100.1 Black Cherry P. serotina 6.2 100.0 10 species index= 109.0 Black Oak Q. velutina 8.0 98.1 Virginia Pine P. virginiana 5.3 98.0 Yellow Buckeye A. flava 3.6 96.5 Black Walnut J. nigra 5.9 90.2 Tree of Heaven A. altissima 7.1 89.3 Red Maple A. rubrum 6.5 86.0 Persimmon D. virginiana 1.8 58.4 Hophornbeam O. virginiana 1.5 53.7 Grape Vine Vitis spp 0.84 114 annual rings counted on downed oak across trail. 4 feet above root flair Turner Sharp --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
