Old Growth Trees

[rarefish383]

Haven't stopped by in a while. Mowing season had me busy. When things let up, my wife and I went on holiday from where we live in Maryland, to her friends house, in Oklahoma. Three days driving, 8-10 hours per day. In Oklahoma we went to Keystone Ancient Forest. I was expecting giant trees 2-300 feet tall. Nothing was over about 75-80 feet. There were smallish trees that looked similar to White Oaks, maybe 10-12 inches across, that had been bent in right angles about a foot off the ground. The info center said these trees were bent like that by Native Americans, 150+ years ago, as direction markers. I was skeptical and when we got back to the info center I called them out on it. I said there was no way a tree that small was 150 years old. Then they took me over to a display that had a slice of Oak and a slice of Cedar about a foot across. The Cedar had 167 growth rings on it. When I got home I did a bit of searching and found a lot of scientific documentation on the forest. I learned something interesting and awe inspiring.  Something that old and that small.

 

I have a piece of vacation property in West Virginia, about 2 1/2 hours from home. I was there this past weekend. When I was getting ready to leave, I decided to cut down a dead Oak and bring it home for firewood. The tree has been dead for 4-5 years and all the bark and most of the branches had fallen off. My Brother in Law was loading it up on my trailer, when he said, "look at these growth rings"? They were every bit as tight as the ones at Keystone Ancient Forest, on my own property, 1000 miles apart. This morning I took an orbital sander and sanded the chainsaw marks off so the annual rings would be easier to see. The piece I had was about 7-8 inches across, and I got 120+ rings. I hope I remember how to post pics. This little dead tree brought a lot of joy to my house this weekend, Joe.

 

[trigger_andy]

Awesome! Love it.

Please tell me you’re not just gonna burn that as firewood now you know it’s age? Looks beautiful oak.

A very talented member here made me a nest of bowls from some dry oak. Came out better than I could have expected.

[rarefish383]

I don't know what I'm going to do with the solid part. The first 8 or 9 blocks have a small hollow in them. Since they are already cut to 18" length, I might just make them firewood. The solid ones, I don't know. I could just cut them into cookies/discs, and sand them. I have a 32" wide drum sander. If I had of known before I cut it to firewood length, I would have cut some small saw logs and tried quarter sawing it. As they are, they make very interesting disks, just showing the close growth rings. I might put some on ebay and see what happens?

[rarefish383]

I have seen where people have taken a straight pin and made a flag of what happened on that date, on that year?

[rarefish383]

I called the West Virginia Forestry Dept today and chatted with the Forester in charge of my County. He said while not common, trees like mine are not overly rare either. He said it does meet all of the criteria for "Old Growth" trees. I asked if the big 24-36 inch, 110 feet tall White Oaks were the same age as this little one. He said all of the mature trees in my forest are within 20 years of each other. What happens is so many trees start growing and have spread out canopies. Then they drop acorns and the new ones, just a few years younger, get shaded out. They are very resilient, and keep growing in a stunted state. Sometimes a big tree will blow over, get logged, whatever, opening up a big patch of sunlight. The small stunted tree will take off growing and catch up with the other mature trees. Then when they are logged they get a surprise of very tight rings in the middle and overly large rings on the out side. I'll be on the watch for any more smallish trees that die or blow over. I'd like to have some quarter sawn boards out of an Old Growth tree.

Edited December 6, 2021 by rarefish383