Did you know that a tree can increase the value of your residential property by up to 10%? Big trees tend to attract people’s attention and add aesthetic value to a forest habitat or to a landowner’s property, in addition to providing important habitat to a host of other plants, animals, and fungi. The Virginia Big Tree program, coordinated by the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech, is an Extension outreach initiative that encourages community members to measure and record the largest trees of each species in the state.
This week, I assisted in measuring one of the largest black cherry trees (Prunus serotina) in Virginia. Trunk circumference, height, and average crown width are logged (no pun intended) to assign an overall point value to the tree. Though this particular tree is not the largest in the state, it still holds a respectable 266.75 points (338 points is the VA state record), but more importantly it brings great joy to the family who owns it.
The Southeast Dairy Youth Retreat stopped at James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange County this week. As part of their program, all of the kids (ages 9-19) were given a quick lesson in natural resources by yours truly! Working with Virginia Cooperative Extension Forester Adam Downing, I led each group of students through a brief tour of Montpelier’s beautiful Landmark forest. We talked about native vs. invasive plants, deer management, edible plants, and identification of various birds, herps, and macroinvertebrates. All of the students were incredibly receptive to the information that I shared with them. Since most of these kids will use land for agricultural practices one day, it is important that they learn the value of forest management so that we create a new generation of well-informed, environmentally-conscious landowners for the future.
In another educational outreach activity this week, I joined the Virginia Department of Forestry at the first annual Fauquier County 4-H Ag Expo. Here, we worked with groups of kindergarteners to teach them about the life cycle of a tree and how plants get their energy. Many of the kids were excited to share that they had already learned about some of the concepts we were covering in the activities. They knew that trees are living creatures, but they have to make their own food since trees don’t have mouths or stomachs like us. Several students told me that the DOF station was their favorite activity of the day, so I’d like to thank Joe Rossetti for choosing the curriculum and for giving me the opportunity to work with these great kids!
An important part of working for the Department of Forestry is helping landowners develop management plans for their properties. Every piece of land has a different history and purpose, so there are a set of measurements that foresters use to quantify baseline forest characteristics. Basal area is a measurement that shows how many tree stems occupy a given area. Instead of sitting down on the forest floor and whipping out our TI-84 graphing calculators to do some super intense math, we can estimate! Survey points are established throughout a forest and a small glass prism is used to count “in” trees from each point. A tree is “in” if when viewed through the glass prism, the distorted view of the trunk overlaps with the view of the trunk to the naked eye. (The pictures below should do a much better job of explaining this).
We can also get a general idea of forest health by taking a core from a well-established tree in the forest and looking at the trunk’s growth rings over the years. If a tree is in a place with good soil and sufficient resources, those growth periods between the rings will be HUGE!
This data is combined with qualitative observations about plant diversity that are made while walking through the woodland areas. With all of this information recorded, a forester can create a personalized plan of action for that particular forest’s future.
Since my time with Kaleigh and Aliya (AKA the most amazing Manassas National Battlefield Park resource management interns) is dwindling faster than any of us want, they were kind enough to stop by Conway Robinson and help me with one of my projects at the forest this week! In preparation for the deer hunt that will take place at the state forest later this year, we set out into the woods to locate 22 pre-determined points where hunters are allowed to set up their stands for the event.
With some super heavy thunderstorms that rolled through the area earlier in the week, there were some points where I thought we might all sink into the deep mud and never be seen again! In all seriousness, I had a great time showing them the work that I do on the days that I’m not at the battlefields. I’m grateful to be able to call them my part-time coworkers!