Great articles on MTSF guys. Glad to see there are forestry people in our state of sound mind!!!
Ray -----Original Message----- From: "Mike Leonard" <[email protected]> To: "'ENTS'" <[email protected]> Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 05:49:47 -0400 Subject: [ENTS] Mohawk Trail State Forest ENTs, Here are a few more shots of our hike with Bob at MTSF. My Biltmore stick was just a prop used to give more perspective to the size of some of these giants. The Forestmeister and Bob are in the second photo looking at some northern hardwood old growth. Hey Bob I think Joe deserves a tree to be named after him. I think he likes sugar maple the best. How about it Joe? That one to the left of you is a beauty! Some other things I learned and other observations: 1. Bob told us of a big pine that was cut at MTSF to provide a new ship mast. It wasn’t easy taking down the tree and I think it damaged a few on the way down. Afterwards there were inquiries from some wealthy people who also wanted a new ship mast from MTSF! Thankfully DCR said it was a one shot deal. 2. The field with the prairie grass big bluestem was interesting. But it was kind of shocking to hear that the UMass Ag Dept. plowed the field in an experiment which most likely destroyed any archaeological finds that were there! 3. Bob told us about the bear tree by a cool little cave. There was a bear who came around who liked to rub this tree and left a lot of scat, etc. Well when a UMass wildlife student went back and told his wildlife prof about this they went back and scooped and scraped all the bear evidence and the bear never came back! What’s wrong with these UMass people anyway? Well it’s not a surprise to me since the UMass forestry professors have betrayed my profession as well. 4. By the Elders white pine grove, there is a swath of old growth hardwoods (in the 2nd photo) consisting of some beautiful sugar maple and ash along with some decent size yellow birch. As Bob pointed out, the richness of the site is indicated by some of the understory plants like maidenhair fern. Even if this area was not old growth, it would not be conducive for active forest management because of the steep slopes and soils which stay wet a great part of the year. All of this proves that our public lands need more than just Forest Management Plans. They need complete Resource Management Plans that look at all of the resources of these forests and then we can do a better job of zoning the wilderness areas and those areas where silviculture and timber production can be done. The RMPs need to be done first and then the Forest Mgt. Plans can be done for those areas that will be actively managed. But as always the battle will be how much should be wilderness. Mike --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
