"Lost Forests of New England" film screening

If you live within driving distance of Amherst, MA, you may be interested in an upcoming screening of The Lost Forests of New England, to be presented on January 23, 2019, at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment.

The 7pm showing will feature our film, which is the story of central New England's old-growth forests... what they once were, what happened to them since European settlers arrived, and what remains of them today. Characteristics of our primitive forests will be highlighted, as well as their many ecological values.

 

Following the film, there will be a panel of experts to answer questions about our remnant New England old-growth forests, and to discuss the need for forest expanses of large, old trees as a remedy for climate issues.

The panelists will include nationally known old-growth forest sleuth and author Bob Leverett (who appears in the film); Bill Moomaw, Professor Emeritus of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, and Chair of the Woods Hole Research Center; and Ray Asselin, the filmmaker.

Bob, a retired engineer and mathematician, has been exploring, measuring, documenting, and writing about old growth forests across the country for many decades. Bill is a retired chemist and has a long list of credits and accomplishments in the field of climate policy. They are currently collaborating on a scientific white paper to document the importance of large, old trees in sequestering carbon, a topic of much scientific interest today.

Bob Leverett (L), Bill Moomaw

This will be an excellent opportunity to learn about ancient northeast forests and why more and more people are now recognizing their value, beauty, and importance.

For specific event information, contact Hitchcock Center for the Environment.

New Film: My Forest Has Worms

The Unexpected Threat to Northern Forests

Owners of dogs and cats are well aware of the problems caused when their pets have worms. Luckily, there are remedies for those mammalian issues.

But now there's another serious invasive forest pest, one that we have welcomed, and thought was completely beneficial; one that has insidious behavior, yet seems so benign and desirable to have around. It's advancing into our northern forests, altering their composition, even destroying them. And there's no remedy, no pill to stop it. What hideous critter is this?

Scientists call it "Lumbricus terrestris". Most of us know it better as ... the  common nightcrawler ! Actually, it's not just the nightcrawler that's a problem, but a number of earthworm species, none of which belong here. In the northern reaches of the U.S., where glaciers occurred, there are no native earthworms (states south of the glacier's limit do have native earthworms, which are not a problem in those forests).

The Forest Floor

 First, the background story. Ten thousand and more years ago, huge glaciers covered the northern portion of our continent, as far south as New Jersey in the east, west through the Great Lakes region to the west coast. No native earthworm species, if they were here prior to the glaciers, survived under the ice sheets, which were thousands of feet thick. In the post-glacial period, our forests grew back, following the melting glaciers northward. But native earthworms in the unglaciated regions to the south only advance in the soil a couple dozen feet or so per year, so they couldn't move northward as fast as the forest did when glaciers retreated; thus, our northern forests have existed for millennia without them, and are adapted to the worm-free habitat.

Each autumn, as leaves fell, they accumulated on the forest floor; they were slowly decomposed by fungi, microbes, and other organisms.

A natural forest floor duff layer

But the breakdown was slow, and the organic duff layer was thick on the forest floor; in fact, that's what the duff layer is known as: "the forest floor".

Understory plants, including wildflowers, shrubs, and tree seedlings, take root in that layer, which lies above the mineral soil. They depend upon that carpet of duff for nutrients, and as a rooting medium. In a good site

Intact herbaceous plants

without worms, that layer can be 4 or 5 inches deep. It is an insulating blanket, helping to protect from freezing temperatures in winter, and hot, drying conditions in summer. It's the zone where most rooting takes place, because the duff is well aerated and spongy (you can feel that as you walk on it), holds moisture, and contains the most organic nutrients. Roots that penetrate below the floor layer into the soil act as anchoring roots, but most nutrient uptake is done in the compost-like duff.

In an undisturbed forest, that floor layer becomes a giant web of mycorrhizae, which are root cells modified by the presence of certain fungi (eg, amanitas, boletes, chanterelles, etc).

Chanterelles, a mycorrhizal mushroom

Fungi can't photosynthesize like green plants do, so they can't manufacture their own food. Instead, they either obtain it by decomposing organic matter (in the case of one class of fungi), parasitizing living organisms, or through a complex partnership with plant roots (mycorrhizal fungi). In the latter case, the fungi help to make nutrients and water available to the plants, which in turn surrender food to the fungus. It's a symbiotic relationship, each partner benefiting from the other. (As an interesting side note, it's been reported that the largest known organism on Earth is a fungus in Oregon that is thousands of years old, and occupies nearly 2400 acres! However, it's not a mycorrhizal fungus).

The largest percentage of plant and tree species (80% or more) have mycorrhizal relationships, which are highly important to plants, particularly in poor soils. Mycorrhizal fungi excel at gathering phosphorous from the soil, and trees in nutrient-poor soil do far better when they can form mycorrhizae. That's how a proper forest should be working.

Today's Forest Floor Problem

In our northern states where the non-native earthworms have invaded the hardwood forests, they rapidly eat newly fallen leaves and small twigs, consuming the duff layer, and mixing it into the lower soil layers via their movements into the ground. The duff layer is not replenished as quickly as it is eaten, and disappears. Earthworm activity dramatically decreases the mycorrhizal relationships, and thereby harms the plants that rely on them and the duff layer. The makeup of the soil layers is changed, to the detriment of the forest community that has occupied the land for millennia. Worms break up the organic layer to the point where important elements such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and carbon are leached deeper into the soil, where young plant roots simply can't reach them. Herbaceous plants can virtually disappear, leaving the ground barren and brown. The soil becomes drier due to aeration by the worms. Compare this photo of stark, worm-damaged woods to those of the undamaged old growth forests above:

Worm damaged, impoverished forest floor

Notice how there's no duff under the thin layer of leaves (not to mention the obvious lack of green plant life on the ground). The photo was taken at the height of the growing season, in a suburban forest.

There are some plant species that don't participate in mycorrhizal relationships, and may survive the onslaught. So you may see a diminished complex of plants, comprising a sparse variety of species, with things still looking green. For example, Pennsylvania sedge may take over the area. You may find Jack-in-the-pulpit, or False Solomon's Seal.

Some of the trees that appear to be particularly sensitive to the disappearance of the forest floor layer are Sugar Maple, Red Maple, Red Oak, Basswood,
Serviceberry (Shadbush), and Hophornbeam. Their seedlings don't do well without the duff's benefits. Ash seedlings, however, can do well (but they're under severe attack now by the Emerald Ash Borer). Nightcrawlers prefer to eat the most nutritious leaves, so the fallen basswood and maple leaves tend to go first; when they're gone, oak leaves will be eaten. The population of worms will be greater in the forests with the greatest quantities of the leaves they prefer, so basswood/maple forests tend to be affected more than oak/beech woods.


The forest is a complex ecosystem, so animal species are also affected. With the presence of earthworms and resultant loss of the floor layer, tiny invertebrates and microscopic organisms decline, which can affect the entire food web, from amphibians and reptiles to birds, small mammals, and large mammals.

Redback Salamander

Salamanders, for instance, go into decline because their young can't find enough of the duff layer-resident food they depend on. And with the drying of the uppermost ground layer, their habitat is degraded.

Where do these earthworms come from?

 

 It's believed that the non-native ones that are found here were first brought in ships from Europe. Soil was used as ballast in the holds of those ships, and it no doubt contained earthworms. Potted plants were also brought here over time. So that's what started it all. Now, we also have some from Asia, including the latest invader, the "Jumping Snake Worm" (aka "Asian Jumping Worm", "Crazy Snake Worm"), Amynthas agrestis. The movement of the invasion front radiates outward from wherever the worms are introduced; it happens much more quickly as a result of human activities than from the natural advancement of the worms.

Now that the worms have become established, we spread them by various means. We move topsoil from one location to another; fishermen may discard unused bait worms; gardeners encourage them in compost piles; well-intended community composting sites provide soil containing worms to anyone who wants it; landscaping practices move plants with soil and worms long distances. Worms deposit tiny eggs and cocoons in the soil, and these can easily be undetected and transported into forest interiors (eg, in soil caught in the tread of tires, or even boots).

Heavy deer populations compound the problem when they browse herbaceous plants and tree seedlings. Add logging to that, and you really have a recipe for declining forest cover.

New film

We have produced a new short film, "My Forest Has Worms", to show the nasty effects invasive worms have on our northern forests. You can view it on our New England Forests Youtube channel, or in the player window below (player might not be available if you're reading this in an email feed).

A Call for Old Growth Forest

It's becoming more and more clear, on many levels, that we have gone far beyond what wisdom would suggest as the limit of forest exploitation in New England. Early European settlers faced daunting challenges upon their arrival here, having known only a homeland that had already largely exhausted its forest cover. The magnificent timber they encountered on these shores was seen not only as a fabulous, infinite resource, but an imposing wilderness that had to be defeated, cleared, and replaced with crops.

Had we been in their shoes, we no doubt would have felt the same; it was a matter of survival. But we are now long past those days of "opening up the land for farming," and of homesteading and back-breaking travails. We see that, in establishing this country, we've been overzealous in our conquests, and maybe we should apply a bit of restraint. Forest cover has returned to a large extent in New England, and we have mostly stopped clear-cutting. However, we still operate on the theory that we can continually cut trees that have reached the ripe old age of 60 or so years, and that that is "sustainable".

Early Successional Forests

But now there is weighty pressure today, at least in Massachusetts, to once again remove a significant percentage of our more "mature" forests (which, in biological fact, have barely reached their adolescent years) to create more early-successional habitat, from grasslands to young, small-diameter trees.

Why? Such conditions favor several game species (deer, turkey, rabbits, some bird species, etc), which sounds attractive. And it actually is attractive habitat, which I've always enjoyed. But there is no shortage of deer, turkey, and rabbit here. In fact, they've become nuisances in many suburban locales.

Early-successional habitat

The Biomass Scheme

Even far more disturbing is the latest money-making bonanza: burning wood on an industrial scale, aka "biomass". The proponents of this ill-conceived plan state that this is a wonderful, sustainable, green, carbon-neutral way to generate energy and deal with the climate change issue. They have, in other states to the south and west, promised that they would burn (and/or make wood pellets from) only the "waste" wood that is a byproduct of logging (ie, poor quality trees; and branches, bark, sawdust, etc). Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? If that's your reaction, you owe it to yourself to see a film on the subject as soon as possible... "BURNED: Are Trees the New Coal?".

"There was a forest here last week..."

I saw the film recently, and I can promise you it will change your mind about supporting the biomass industry. What has been done to forests and people in the southeast and upper midwest is unconscionable, and about as far from "green" and "sustainable" (whatever those terms mean), and carbon-neutral as one can get. Would you suppose that burning old creosote-soaked railroad ties and tires (to the tune of thousands of tons at a time) is a good practice? Is it advisable to level entire forests and burn every pound of woody matter that once was tree? Furthermore, the wood pellets being produced from our razed forests are mostly being shipped to other countries around the world... we're destroying our natural environment so that foreign countries can benefit at our expense.

That's what has occurred in other states. It may not go to that extreme in New England states. But once an industry and infrastructure are in place to make pellets and burn wood, do you suppose there would be enough "waste" wood to keep them going indefinitely? Or is it likely that, before long, whole trees and forests will be on the chopping block for furnace fuel?

It is known that burning wood, especially on an industrial scale, pumps much more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than burning coal or fossil fuels. That will only exacerbate the greenhouse gas effect that worsens climate change. At the same time, the forests that had been actively removing carbon dioxide from our air by locking up carbon in their trees and soils would be removed, thereby making the problem even worse.

The claims made by the forestry industry that young, vigorously growing forests sequester the greatest amounts of carbon (thereby removing carbon dioxide from the air) sound plausible. Trees produce wood, and wood is largely composed of carbon. So, it seems to make sense that a rapidly growing young forest, such as you'd see regenerating after a cut, would be packing carbon away in the new trees: you can easily see that a whip of a sapling has grown several feet in height in a year in some cases. And it's true, those trees do sequester carbon in their wood.

Bigger is Better

But what's not broadly understood is that large, older trees are much more productive in that regard, and are laying down far greater amounts of wood in their massive trunks, limbs, and roots. They have huge crowns of foliage that are photosynthesizing a much greater amount of sugars than a sapling or small tree can, and that's what is packing carbon away for long term storage.

Which do you suppose stores more carbon:  young forest... ... or old ?

It may not appear that big trees are growing as much as young trees are, because their new growth is mostly occurring way up under the lofty crowns, where the old trees are putting on girth at a greater rate than in their lower trunk (the greatest amount of growth takes place just under the crown, where the most photosynthates are available from foliage).

Think of the shape of a tree trunk... it tapers down toward the top of the tree, like a cone. As years go by, the trunk thickens, and grows taller. Eventually, a maximum height is achieved, but growth still happens: the upper regions of the trunk increase in diameter more than the lower region, and the trunk becomes more columnar than tapered. Carbon is still being drawn from the air and converted to wood tissue, just more so toward the top of the trunk. And because of the large circumference of the trunk (and limbs, roots), a greater absolute amount of wood is being created in the large old tree than in a puny young tree. It's that simple.

The Felling-for-Furnace Folly

Cutting down a forest to burn its wood, then claiming that the regrowth of that forest counterbalances the carbon emissions is pure folly. The burned wood puts carbon dioxide into the air, and it will take decades or centuries for the regenerating forest to recapture that carbon. It's like scrapping a car and melting the steel down to be recycled. Yes, a new car can eventually be made from the metal, but in the meantime, you still don't have a car! Plus, the cut forest no longer produces oxygen.

Forests (and oceans) are by far the best tools for removing carbon dioxide gas from our atmosphere. They are absolutely essential to life on this planet, maintaining a life-supporting balance of gases in our atmosphere. 

Old Growth Forests

Rather than more young, early-successional forest, what we sorely need is much more old growth forest. That could come about by designating as "no-cut" some percentage (or all) of the maturing public forests we currently have. Many of those second-growth forests are over a century old now (but not yet old growth). They are highly valuable as carbon sinks, and should be left completely unmanaged, to become old growth once again, just as nature had been doing for eons before we got here.

That's what's missing from our environment: old, natural forest. And I don't mean park-like stands of 75-year-old trees, and certainly not monoculture plantations. I mean true old-growth forest, where natural processes take place, unhindered by humans. It will take strong public will to allow nature to carry on its timeless work, but it can, should, and must, be done.

Old growth forests have many benefits besides carbon sequestration. They are unmatched at providing clean water. They filter pollutants from the air, and are oxygen factories. They maintain the genetics of trees that have survived and persisted through varying conditions for centuries, assuring adaptability to fluctuations in climate, to imported diseases and pests. They prevent erosion of soils into our waterways, and mitigate potential flood events. They create macro- and micro-habitats that foster a great diversity of life forms not found elsewhere. Their soil-borne mycorrhizal fungi networks interconnect trees and plants, greatly improving the health and viability of all those connected members. And, not least of all, they beckon to our human spirit; we intuitively know that "all is well" when we immerse ourselves in nature's holiest of places.

Moss-covered Old-Growth Sugar Maple

Lost Forests of New England film screenings

Our 2018 film "The Lost Forests of New England" was first publicly screened in July at Harvard Forest's Fisher Museum to an overflow audience. In fact, a second room was put into service, with its own screen, to accommodate those who couldn't watch in the main hall. Following the film, a panel of experts took questions from the audience. We heartily thank Dr. David Foster and his staff for hosting the premiere showing of this old growth forest film.

It was gratifying to see the large audience response, and it's clear that the topic of old growth forests is one of great interest to New Englanders. 

That event generated a lot of local interest in the film, and a number of additional screenings are being scheduled in Massachusetts. On the evening of September 21, 2018, the Mt. Wachusett Visitor's Center will host the next showing. 

Three days later, on September 24, the film will be presented in Greenfield, MA, at the Greenfield Garden Cinema, at 4:30pm, followed by the new film "Burned" at 7pm.

On October 5, 2018, there will be yet another showing in the theater at the Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA, at 7pm. 

More such events are in the pipeline, but not firmly scheduled yet.

At each showing, there will again be a panel of experts, some of whom appear in the film, to comment and conduct a Q&A session.

We hope to see you in one of those audiences!

 

New Film: Tom Wessels- Reading the Forested Landscape

I'm very pleased to announce a new film featuring Tom Wessels (professor emeritus, Antioch University New England), who is a terrestrial ecologist and author.

Tom Wessels

In central New England, it's almost a given that when you walk through a forest you'll encounter at least one stone wall (or, perhaps more accurately, stone fence).

 Who would build such a structure out in the woods? And why? There are well over one hundred thousand miles of stone fences throughout this region, running every which way through forests. What's going on here?


The greatest percentage of the forests here are relatively young, having regenerated following abandonment of agricultural land, beginning in the mid to late 1800's. The stone fences are artifacts of those old farming days. Agricultural land can be of three types: crop fields, hay mowings, and pasture. Each leaves signature characteristics that Tom Wessels has become a master at discerning.

Within a long-standing forest, various kinds of disturbances occur that, like the abandonment of a farm, leave their peculiar traces. Wind storms, for example, blow trees over, uprooting them and creating a hole or pit, and a mass of soil that the root ball pulls up and eventually drops beside the pit. Forest fires and logging leave their own evidence in the woods. Beavers, fungi, and insects all affect the forest. And so on.

Tom has written two books to help us understand what we see (and what many of us would never have noticed) when exploring the forest. The first was "Reading the Forested Landscape". I found it hard to put down, and have read it several times; with each reading, a little more sinks in; forest mysteries are finally made clear.

Many readers told Tom they just love the book, but still found it difficult to put its insights into practice in the woods. Tom realized he needed to create a "dichotomous key" type of book, a "field guide to forest forensics". And so, book number two on this topic is titled "Forest Forensics: a Field Guide to the Forested Landscape". It walks you through the interpretation of your forest scene, step-by-step.

After meeting Tom while filming "The Lost Forests of New England" (in which he appears), I asked if he'd be interested in collaborating on a film based on his books; his answer pleased me, and we jumped into a one-year project. So, we now have a three-part "Reading the Forested Landscape" film for you to enjoy! I would suggest reading the books first (especially the first one), and then watching the film to complement and reinforce what you've learned. But if you watch the film first, then by all means get the books... there's much more material in them than what the film can cover.


Sites in New Hampshire and Vermont are used in the film, but the information Tom conveys applies to a region well beyond the bounds of central New England.

You can watch all three parts of the film on the New England Forests Youtube channel (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), or by clicking the player panels below (note: if you're reading this in an email feed, you may not see the player panels).

Please feel free to leave comments on this blog post, and/or on the youtube sites. 

Now- get into a comfortable chair... there's a lot to learn...

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Harvard Forest to Screen Old-Growth Forest Film

Our 2018 old-growth forest film, "The Lost Forests of New England," will be screened at Harvard Forest's Fisher Museum on the evening of July 10, at 7pm. The one-hour film tells the story of central New England's pre-settlement forests, factors that led to the nearly complete clearing of those forests, and the discovery of remnants of those wonderful woodlands.

Following the showing of the film, there will be a panel of experts (many of whom appear in the film) present to make brief statements and to answer questions from the audience.

The panel will include David Foster, Director of Harvard Forest; Bob Leverett, old-growth forest expert; David Orwig, forest ecologist at Harvard Forest; Heidi Ricci, Assistant Director of Advocacy at Mass Audubon; Bill Moomaw, Professor Emeritus of International Environmental Policy at the Fletcher School, Tufts University; and others yet to be confirmed.

Join us to learn the many ways New England will benefit from an increase in natural, timeless, old-growth forests.

The event is free and open to the public. Fisher Museum is located at 324 North Main Street (Rt 32), Petersham, MA. Directions are available at the museum's website.

The White Pine Weevil - a New Film

The eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) is the tallest growing tree species in the northeast; in fact, currently, the tallest living thing in New England is a 175-foot white pine growing in northern Massachusetts.

White Pine

In early colonial times, Britain had long been exploiting the European supply of Baltic pine or "Riga fir" (P. sylvestris), from which masts for her warships were fashioned, and the supply was becoming strained. A dependable source of shipmast trees was badly needed, and the newly discovered eastern white pine in the American colonies was just the ticket. This was the tallest conifer species in all of eastern North America. Masts 40 inches in diameter and 120 feet tall (weighing up to 18 tons) could be readily obtained from these soaring, straight trunks.

Arrow-straight white pine

Massive white pines, straight as a sunbeam, were also highly prized by the colonists for the superb timbers and lumber they could provide, their wood being easily worked; it was light, and strong for its weight. The fledgling colonies sorely needed the pines for building materials as much as the British navy did, albeit for different purposes. The original, primeval stands of virgin pine were relentlessly clear cut, beginning along the New England coast, going north and west from there.

Through the 1800's, central New England was rapidly cleared for agricultural land, to the point where only about 20 percent of that area retained any forest cover. Big pines were no more. With the opening of the Ohio valley in the latter part of the nineteenth century, New England farm land was largely abandoned, and reverted to forest. Many fallow fields seeded in with white pine, eventually resulting in the next round of white pine logging in the early twentieth century. And today, white pine lumber is still in high demand.

One of the downsides of large tracts of pine growing in open, abandoned fields  is that the flush of young pines growing in full sun is a boon to an insect known as the white pine weevil (Pissodes strobi). The vigorously growing saplings are highly susceptible to the onslaught of this weevil, and are a vital part of the insect's life cycle. In spring, adult weevils feed on the tissues of the uppermost shoot and terminal buds (last year's growth); that in itself might not do much damage to the shoot or tree. However, the adult females chew pinholes through the tender bark and cambium layer of the shoot and deposit eggs in them. This is where their young will develop and feed, and there may be hundreds of them in one shoot. The larvae will feed in the soft, developing tissues under the supple bark, which kills the terminal shoot; when they mature to adults, they chew their way out.

The white pine weevil

A pine tree, like most conifers, is programmed to grow one trunk, straight up, by elongating the topmost terminal bud (and growing a whorl of side branches at its base), eventually ending the growing season with a new set of terminal buds for next year's growth.

But when that new terminal shoot is damaged or killed, the whorl of side branches below it curve upward to take over the role of upward-growing leader. Problem is, now there are typically two or more trunks instead of one. It's great real estate for the next generation of weevils, but a severe blow to the value of the tree for man's uses.

Multi-trunk white pine - result of weevil damage

If you've ever wondered why some pines are single-stemmed and others are multi-trunked, you now know the original terminal shoot was either killed or broken. If you'd like to see the weevil's life cycle, then you'll want to watch the latest New England Forests film, "The White Pine Weevil". Click the player below (may not be available in email feeds), or it can be found at our Youtube channel (www.youtube.com/c/NewEnglandForests).

Feel free to leave comments on the blog and/or at the Youtube film.

Return of the Great White Pines

The following is an essay by guest contributor Bob Leverett, the eastern (U.S.) old-growth forest "guru". 

Saheda, Tecumseh, and Washakie

Three Massachusetts Trees That Give Us Bragging Rights

 

            By Robert T. Leverett

            April 20, 2018

White Pines: A Historical Perspective

What comes to mind at the mention of New England: the region’s rich history, culture, scenery? All of these, but what about its forests? Were it not for our brilliant fall colors, I doubt many people would visit us to see our woodlands. New England’s forests are not associated with exceptional trees. But it wasn’t always this way. In the 1600's and 1700's, chroniclers described a landscape that featured giant pines, some claimed to be well over 200 feet in height. In fact, the eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) was the foremost symbol of the region’s original virgin wilderness.

Great white pines of yesteryear

Today’s forest historians relegate those giant pines to the pages of history. Romantic accounts abound of white pines, especially in Maine and New Hampshire, reaching astounding sizes and achieving great ages, and of course, the species was famous as a resource for ship masts. The great whites became the replacement for the exhausted European Riga Fir (actually Scotch Pine, P. sylvestris) used by the King’s Navy to hold up the sails of its war ships. Trees of a certain size and shape were reserved exclusively for the Royal Navy. They were often marked by three slashes of an ax, called the broad arrow markings. But the time of those legendary pines came and went. 

 

The intense lumbering of the region, especially in the 1700's and 1800's, left us with young regrowth woodlands. By the early to mid-1900's, most of our New England forests were populated with younger trees. Field guides of the time often described the white pine as a tree capable of surpassing 100 feet in height, but often listed current heights as commonly 75 to 100 feet. More descriptive authors like Donald Culross Peattie reminded us of the historic heights, but most of these authors made it clear that no such trees still existed. In fact, the stature of the species had been so diminished that one hiking guide to trails in New Hampshire boasted of a pine that was purportedly 125 feet tall. This lone tree was considered the rare exception at the time the guide was written.

White Pines Today

To make matters worse, today’s management paradigm aims at keeping our woodlands young and shrubby, said by timber interests to be a healthier state than when trees reach their maturity. Yet, for many reasons, our forests are offering up some surprises. The biggest one may be the re-emergence of the eastern white pine to reclaim some of its former glory.

So, what is today’s story about this charismatic eastern species, and more particularly, where do Massachusetts’s pines fit into the narrative? In conservation areas, parks, state forests, and even on private lands, the great whites are maturing, and one of the best places to see them is Mohawk Trail State Forest (MTSF), located in the MA townships of Charlemont, Savoy, and Florida. How large do these regrowth pines get? Do any approach their historic sizes? This question will in part be answered by my account of the re-measuring of two of Mohawk’s largest.

Re-measuring the Saheda Pine

On April 18, 2018, Ray Asselin, Jared Lockwood, and I went to the Elders Grove of white pines in Mohawk Trail State Forest. The visitor reaches a cluster of conspicuously larger trees after a 10 to 15 minute walk on a trail paralleling the scenic Deerfield River. On the 18th, this path was slippery with recently fallen wet snow. The compromised footing presented me with challenges for my new knee. Yet, I was anxious to get as much measuring done as possible before the hardwoods leaf out. The veil of dense green of the hardwoods 50 to 100 feet above the head makes re-measuring the overstory pines that thrust through the hardwoods very difficult, if not impossible.

My first task was to re-measure the Saheda pine. Saheda is the name of a Mohawk ambassador who was murdered in the late 1600's when he was on a mission of peace to the Pocumtucks at what is now Old Deerfield. I thought the historic Saheda deserved a tree named for him in the Elders Grove, and in my Native Tree Society (NTS) capacity, chose arguably the handsomest pine in the grove. Saheda is located above the trail, near two others: Sacajawea and Ouray.

On this visit, I wanted to record Saheda’s current height before the onset of the growing season. I closely monitor this great tree and have for years. I’ve watched Saheda and other pines in the grove climb upward since the late 1970's, but it was in the mid-1990's when we began measuring Saheda with serious intent.

In 1998, Will Blozan, President of NTS and an arborist extraordinaire, climbed and tape-drop measured Saheda. At that time, we confirmed Saheda at the eye-popping height of 158.3 feet. Based on what we believed white pines to be able to achieve growth-wise in the modern era, this was exceptional. Only one other tree we knew of topped Saheda - another white pine, also in MTSF, named for Mohawk chief Jake Swamp. Will had also climbed and tape-drop measured Jake to a height of 158.6 feet on the same visit when he climbed Saheda. The two trees were neck and neck, and so far as we knew, the two tallest in Massachusetts, if not all New England. We were still influenced by the descriptions of forest historians and government resource managers who continued to maintain that the species was still in its youthful stage throughout New England, save for older pines growing on very unproductive sites – small trees. 

We’ve watched both pines, Jake Swamp and Saheda, exceed 160 feet in height, and more recently 170. Neither shows signs of slowing down. However, for me, as the years passed, it became apparent that Jake was growing a little faster than Saheda. That seemed to fit with the differences in their ages. Jake is about 160 years old and Saheda, around 185 or 190.

To put a finer point on the numbers, Saheda’s growth rate has averaged 8.46 inches per year since Will’s climb in 1998, and Jake has maintained an average of 9.6 inches since 1992. Most forestry professionals expect pines the ages of these trees to be growing at maybe 5 inches in height per year.

My last measurement of Saheda, taken with a laser rangefinder in July 2017, set its height at 171.4 feet. However, I didn’t use my tripod on that measurement, which made exactly hitting the target a challenge. I had gotten numbers as low as 171.0 feet and as high as 171.8 feet, with one measurement at exactly 171.4. When you press the “fire” button on a laser rangefinder or hypsometer, you can pull the instrument down slightly. On any given measurement, that may or may not happen, but it is a potential source of error. Anyway, the 171.4-foot height seemed a reliable number to settle on, so I proclaimed it as Saheda’s height.

But on this visit I carried my tripod so that I could control handshake and the button-press sources of error that invariably accompany measurements when instruments are handheld.

While I re-measured Saheda’s height, Jared took diameter measurements up the trunk using his TruPulse 200X (hypsometer) and Vortex Solo RT 8/36 (monocular). The combination of a hypsometer and monocular allows us to measure diameter up and down the trunk from a remote location. The formula needed to calculate trunk width above or below eye level from a distance using a monocular is:

where M = reticle reading, D = distance to middle of trunk, F = manufacturer’s reticle factor, and A = angle above or below eye level of width line being measured.

On this visit, our double objective was to fix Saheda’s height prior to the onset of annual growth and to re-model the pine for trunk volume, which required the trunk width measurements.

Jared (left) and Bob measuring Saheda

Finding a good location to see the left side of Saheda’s crown, I set up my tripod. I could see Saheda’s silver id tag near its base, so I was set. Below is a view of Saheda’s base and the location I use to choose an exact spot on the ground from which to measure height. An argument can be made for setting the base point lower to match the slope of the land. I choose to be conservative on this point.

Saheda's base

From locations within 200 feet, necessary for seeing both top and base, the highest crown points of Saheda are the real challenge to see, let alone measure. However, from a much greater distance, its complex double crown stands out. Below is a view of the top taken from well upstream. You can see where I’ve marked the top. But, again, seeing that sprig from much closer requires both work and luck.

Looking for Saheda's top

Part of the challenge becomes clear when one realizes that the area of twigging with candidates for the absolute top can cover as much as 100 ft² on these larger, older pines. At their widest, mature white pine crowns are typically between 40 and 55 feet, although the points of maximum width are well below the top. Still, the area that includes the highest twigs often presents many choices. On older pines, there is seldom a branch that is clearly the tallest from one’s vantage point, and even less often is it centered over the trunk. Crown breakage and re-sprouting is the norm.

Saheda's top

 

Here is an interesting fact. For visitors to Saheda, seeing the tree from a distance seldom seems to make much of an impact. A four-foot wide trunk seen from 200 feet away looks like a stick. One needs to get up close for impact, and looking directly up its trunk is when you experience an OMG moment -and that still occurs for me. In my opinion, Saheda is all that a white pine can hope to be. When I first took my friend Tim Zelazo (now retired from MA-DCR) to see the tall pine, he looked aloft into its crown, and was an immediate fan of Saheda. Tim was no stranger to the Berkshire’s forests, but the Elders Grove had escaped him. Gazing upward, this is what he saw.

Measurement Results

From my vantage point, I was able to shoot to four identifiable tops of Saheda’s double crown, all on the uphill side of the crown. One conspicuous tip gave me a reading of 128.25 feet above the centroid of the TruPulse. I asked Ray to confirm the measurement, which he did. Turning the TruPulse on the axis of the tripod and shooting to Saheda’s metal tag, the height below the centroid read 40.5 feet on the display. The height of the tag above the point I use as Saheda’s base, as shown in the first image, was 3.0 feet. The three numbers add up to 171.7 feet!

Saheda hasn’t grown since July 2017. The difference between the 171.4 and 171.7 probably lies in the use of my tripod, which gave me a sturdier platform to shoot from, as previously explained. In addition, this time my vantage point was different. Regardless, there isn’t a dramatic difference between 171.4 and 171.7. Still, when you are the second tallest living thing we know of in all New England, inches matter.

 Saheda's Carbon Sequestration Capacity

Our second challenge was to update our calculations on Saheda’s trunk volume. With updated figures, we would then: (1) convert volume into total woody mass, (2) derive the carbon portion of that mass, and (3) calculate the amount of CO₂ pulled from the atmosphere to build the trunk. The next chart shows our calculations, followed by more explanatory comments. The process and calculations are shown here to explain the methodology. Skip the chart if you are not interested in these technical details.

 

The newly calculated trunk volume of Saheda is 852 ft³. I had been using 825 ft³ before based on cruder measurements. Limbs add between 5.5% and 6% of the trunk’s volume. Using 5.75%, I arrived at a trunk and limb volume of 901 ft³. Taking an average density of 24 lb/ft³ (that number varies from around 21 to 29), we get a total trunk mass of 21,624 lbs. If 48% of the total mass is elemental carbon, this yields 10,380 lbs. The amount of CO₂ needed to deposit the calculated amount of carbon in the trunk and limbs is 10,380 x 3.67 = 38,095 lbs or 19.05 tons.

For the modest sized rectangular area that Saheda takes up on the landscape, we’re getting a very good environmental return on the physical space.

I’ll leave Saheda with a final picture of the pine and my late, great friend Gary Beluzo, who was an environmental studies professor at Holyoke Community College, where I also taught as an adjunct for 24 years.

Gary Beluzo at the Saheda white pine

Tecumseh and Washakie

  

One of the two other trees we re-measured was Tecumseh, named for the famous Shawnee chief of the early 1800's. Tecumseh was a charismatic figure. It is still difficult to get his full measure. Tecumseh’s tree is no less impressive, but it is even harder to measure than Saheda. In the past, I had established its height at 166.8 feet, but on this visit, I could only get 165.5 feet. We noticed that Tecumseh had experienced a lot of limb pruning, and I believe that it has lost crown. For now, I’ll stay with 165.5. Tecumseh has been climbed and tape-drop measured by both Will Blozan and Bart Bouricious. Like Saheda, Tecumseh achieves a 12-foot girth at breast height. My current estimate of Tecumseh’s trunk volume is 849 ft³.

Below is an image of the base of Tecumseh when my friend Bart Bouricius was climbing and tape-drop measuring the tree. DCR’s Tim Zelazo photographed the event. 

The Tecumseh white pine

We measured another pine, hitherto unnamed, growing a short distance south of Tecumseh. I last measured the nameless one in 2010 when it was 152.6 feet. Today, I got 155.3 feet. This pine has averaged a modest 4.6-inch annual height increase. Obviously, not all the pines are growing at Saheda’s rate. However, most are growing at least a half a foot per growing season. We named this pine Washakie after the great Shoshoni chief. It measures a respectable 10.3 feet in girth, and has a trunk volume of between 550 and 575 ft³. I felt satisfied with the naming choice. Monica and I have visited the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming on several occasions, and I have long admired Washakie. He was a true leader.
 

Our Custom of Honoring Native Americans by Naming Trees After Them

 

In terms of honoring the past Native Americans with trees in the Elders Grove, we now have Saheda, Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Sacajawea, Ouray, Osceola, Wampanoag (unspecified), and now Washakie. The other larger trees will eventually acquire Native American names. Our reason for naming the trees after Native Americans is simply that the custom seems appropriate. The great white pines of yesteryear were abundant when indigenous people were in control. Also, the Mohawks proclaimed the eastern white pine as their tree of peace, and the Algonquin-speaking nations held the species in no less esteem. Additionally, the indigenous peoples found sustenance in the underbark of the pines as a food source. Today we are discovering that the compounds of the pines released into the air have health benefits. In terms of naming all the pines, we don’t want to rush the process, though. It would be counter to the ceremonial state of mind that I associate with real Native teachers.

Is There a Higher Purpose Behind Our Measuring and Modeling?

 

Why do Ray, Jared, and I spend so much time with these lofty pines, and in particular Saheda? Each of us has his reasons, but an especially important one for me is that I find it unacceptable that in 2018 such a great tree should go unrecognized in a state as highly educated and foresighted as Massachusetts. The visibility and importance of Saheda and his companions have largely been lost to our fixation on the presumed need to “manage” all our forests - too often a euphemism for exploitation.

Those of the latter mindset do not understand the full range of the ecological services provided by our biggest trees. These forest monarchs provide habitat for a range of species, sequester more carbon than their junior counterparts, protect the genetic heritage of their species, moderate the climate around them, and provide heretofore unrecognized health benefits to those who walk among them. They appeal to our artistic sense and spiritual nature. No less a personage than Henry David Thoreau understood their place.

“Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of 500 or 1000 acres, where a stick should never be cut … a common possession forever.” (1859)

People can disagree on Saheda’s value along subjective lines such as aesthetics, but Saheda’s role in sequestering carbon should not be in doubt. That alone gives us an immediate reason for valuing it and the other big pines of the Elders Grove. Saheda and Tecumseh debunk the mistaken, and often self-serving belief that the larger, older trees are senescent: holding, but not adding carbon. They are adding, and adding a lot, and we will continue to keep track of the amount.

Sacajawea (left), Saheda, and Ouray pines                                     (New England Forests photo)

I’ll close this topic with some unsettling observations. I wish I didn’t feel the need to make them. All people and professions knowledgeable about forests should find inspiration in places like the Elders Grove. Those splendid trees should be valued for historical, cultural, aesthetic, and ecological reasons.

But sadly, much of modern forestry discounts the ecological role of trees in their maturity. The profession actively promotes early successional habitat, while at best, paying lip service to its late successional counterpart. Obviously, timber people can’t wait 100 years and more for trees to fulfill their ecological role before cutting them. So, practically speaking, most of our forests have to be managed on shorter rotations if we’re to continue enjoying wood products.

Still, one would hope that the professional forestry organizations would publicly support a nontrivial percentage of our forests maintained as late successional. Yet today we are seeing a growing number of forestry voices promoting the use of trees to generate heat and electricity. They claim biomass to be carbon neutral. It clearly is not, and the mental gymnastics that supporters of biomass go through to justify their illogical claims are wholly unconvincing.

As long as outdated and mistaken beliefs about the growth rates of mature trees are publicly promoted by resource managers attempting to justify logging it will be necessary for us to ‘publicly’ set the record straight.

 

Paying Respect to All

This essay is primarily about the Elders Grove pines and more particularly Saheda, Tecumseh, and Washakie. However, in the introduction I alluded to the return of the eastern white pine in Massachusetts as our true New England forest monarch. I will conclude with a list of all the sites we have documented in the Bay State with pines in the height range of 140 feet or more. This list constantly changes, but in the direction of an increasing number of locations. As shown in the table, many of our measurements are old, and we do not believe that we’ve exhausted the current number of "140" sites. There may be as many as 50 statewide. 

Species Code:  WP=White Pine  NS=Norway Spruce  TT=Tulip Tree(Yellow Poplar)

 

 

New Film: The Lost Forests of New England

New England has experienced a vast manipulation of its once-virgin forest lands in a relatively short period of time. There has been an almost complete turnover in forest cover since the arrival of the first European settlers.

Upon the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet (which had smothered the land under thousands of feet of glacial ice for thousands of years, eliminating all life under it), plants and animals migrated northward to re-establish New England forests. This occurred approximately fourteen to fifteen thousand years ago.

New England's Old Growth Forests

The composition of the forest here has changed since that time, the species varying with warming climate. By the time the first Europeans arrived, New England was largely covered by primeval forest. In some areas, Native Americans had already altered forests, for several reasons. But the forest had never been rapaciously exploited as it would be post-settlement.

White Pines

The current forest cover we now enjoy is not what it was 350 years ago.

We, perhaps as recreational users, may find today's New England forests to be attractive in many ways, and doing just fine. But is that just because they're all we know? Are we impressed by stands of 10-inch diameter poles, all the same age? Are multi-trunked, coppiced trees the norm in a forest? Why is that grove of Norway spruce there? Why do all those hemlock trees have so few needles? Why are the beech tree trunks covered with blisters?

Do we know what primitive, old-growth New England forests looked like? Those are long gone, aren't they?

Well, yes they are. And that's truly a sad thing to contemplate. But wait-- there are a few small patches of old growth forest still in existence in New England, as hard as it may be to believe. I was literally thrilled to learn that, some thirty years ago, when I went on my first hike with Bob Leverett (I don't think he had much choice in the matter... I had to see these places!). Bob has led the charge in Massachusetts (and much of the rest of the country) to rediscover, measure,  and document remnant old growth forests. I don't know how he's managed to cover as much ground as he has, but I'm truly grateful for his pursuits. He wore out a couple knees in the effort though.

A few years ago, it was becoming apparent to Bob and me, and some others,  that these remaining old stands, with their characteristics of age and almost mystical ambience, needed to be revered, studied, and most of all... preserved and protected. That led to the idea of a film to document our old growth woodlands. But there was a dilemma... these ancient forests are small fragments of what once was, and as such are vulnerable to loss from ignorance of their value and ecological import. They could disappear literally in a matter of a day or two. To be protected, their existence must be known to those who would care enough about them to be vigilant (that would be you). But the other side of that coin is that sometimes, attention by too many well-meaning enthusiasts results in a place succumbing to "too much love". That put us in a tight spot... we wanted to see these remnants protected forever, but not at the cost of losing them to heavy traffic!

Well, the film is now done. We chose to not readily identify specific locations, so as not to promote undue visitation. That may strike some as elitist; we felt it was the best course to take.

Preserving Remnant Old Growth Forests

The reasons for the need to preserve our only bits of unmanaged, old growth forests are many; they give us a benchmark to compare with what we do to managed forests; they preserve valuable genetic material; they are the best forests that nature can produce in their particular sites; they are complex ecosystems (versus the simplified ones of managed woodlands); so far, they've mostly resisted non-native species invasions. There are more reasons. But one I find to be quite important (no... required) for own my well-being, is the knowledge that such places really do still exist, unspoiled by human exploitation, free of litter, and inhabited by a variety of organisms that belong there just as much as we do.

The film discusses the forests experienced by the first Europeans who saw them and what transpired after settlers took to the land, to the present day explorers and scientists who have rediscovered some real treasures. Featured are a number of prominent ecologists who have studied our old growth remnants.

You can view the film on our New England Forests channel (Youtube), or in the viewer below (may not be available in email feeds).

Please do convey your thoughts about it in the comments section here, and/or on the channel.