ENTS/WNTS folks- Awhile back, Bob asked if anyone thought him to be an evangelist? I don't know, but I have converted. I am now quick to advocate for the ENTS superior measurement techniques, and intuitively believe in them.
That said, as I go outside of our ranks to advocate them, I have often parroted some of our claims (ie, x percent of trees have their tops directly over their base, the remaining y percent of trees have their tops sufficiently off of "center" to result in significant mis-measurement). Well, it seems to me that what value is assigned to x and y is pretty subjective, until we assign those values on analysis of a sufficiently broad sample of the population we're trying to represent (trees, like across North America?). Do we have a database that is tracking how far off of center tree tops are from their base? I believe that the data collected in a sine/sine height determination is sufficient to formulaically calculate the distance "off of center". We could have...if we retained our data used to supply tree heights. I have recorded mine, but that's a very small dataset, and hasn't been the focus of my data collection so far. Are there studies out there that deal with number of trees whose dimensions of tops off of center are analyzed, by crown type (conifer, deciduous), species, topographic land form, regional variations, etc.? Are these studies peer-reviewed? -Don _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_faster:082009 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
