Turner, Jess Riddle and I measured in Holly River State Park but I believe we fell shy of a proper Rucker. I'll pull my notes and post what we found. Nice place!
Will F. Blozan President, Eastern Native Tree Society President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of turner Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 9:17 PM To: ENTSTrees Subject: [ENTS] Re: McDonough Wildlife Preserve Rucker Index Bob, ENTS I will try to fill in some gaps here in West Virginia and I will post another Rucker Index in couple of days. I promise you it will lead off with the nicest White Pine I have measured so far. If I have searched the ENTS web site correctly i could only find two other Rucker Indices for West Virginia - Widen and Alum Creek. If I have missed any please point them out to me. If any ENTS have done any West Virginia Rucker Indices and not posted please share Turner On Apr 6, 9:48 am, [email protected] wrote: > 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] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
