Age of trees

[Pilot]

Great answers and correct info, but the one thing not mentioned is the ring count show the age of the portion of the tree at the height where you are counting, i.e., if you bore the tree at 5 feet and it typically takes 4 years to reach 5 ft. tall, add 4 yrs. to the ring count.

 

[Buggs67]

Great answers and correct info, but the one thing not mentioned is the ring count show the age of the portion of the tree at the height where you are counting, i.e., if you bore the tree at 5 feet and it typically takes 4 years to reach 5 ft. tall, add 4 yrs. to the ring count.

I hadn't realized that. Also relevant is that certain trees, hardwoods, always have thinner rings than other softer trees. And I think that the rings in the earlier years of growth are always thinner than later years. I only count the rings in big trees. I had two red oaks fall during Hurricane Irene, one 94' tall, the other 97'. They were 105 years old IIRC.

 

[JerryK]

Insects can effect ring width, too. We had forest tent caterpillars real bad in our sugar maples about four years ago. Trees lost most of their foliage mid summer.... sounded like rain walking thru the big maples from all the guano raining down.....

 

[PILOON]

Doing some landscaping I needed to remove an old cedar stump.
I sliced off a section of a main root to make an interesting serving platter.
I meticulously counted the growth rings to determine that it was 186 years old. (at least that root was)
Either that was a red cedar or a by the coloring a BC fir but then we are not on the west coast.
My nose definitely identified a cedar like aroma.

 

[tractchores]

I'm always amazed at the age of some of the trees on my property. We had a big oak blow down and it had over 200 rings! I always think long and hard before felling a tree unless its damaged or otherwise causing some big issue because there will never be another mature tree there in my lifetime. Obviously if you're managing for Timber its a little different discussion.

I read this book: Exploring Stone Walls: A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls: Robert M. Thorson: 9780802777089: Amazon.com: Books which discusses how you can tell the history of the land by stone walls. It also talks about how to read a forest and how you can tell the history of a forest by looking at the size of trees, branching patterns and the forest floor including fallen trees. Its pretty interesting and gives an idea of what it might have been like when these old trees started growing.

 

[jrclark]

I'm always amazed at the age of some of the trees on my property. We had a big oak blow down and it had over 200 rings! I always think long and hard before felling a tree unless its damaged or otherwise causing some big issue because there will never be another mature tree there in my lifetime. Obviously if you're managing for Timber its a little different discussion. I read this book: Exploring Stone Walls: A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls: Robert M. Thorson: 9780802777089: Amazon.com: Books which discusses how you can tell the history of the land by stone walls. It also talks about how to read a forest and how you can tell the history of a forest by looking at the size of trees, branching patterns and the forest floor including fallen trees. Its pretty interesting and gives an idea of what it might have been like when these old trees started growing.

Thanks for the book reference. I'll have to check it out.

Our property is entirely wooded and has a host of old stone walls that used to separate the various fields. Now that the forest has taken over those fields for the past 100-150 years, they've given it a truly ancient look. The deer love to follow them as well!

There's one tree in particular that is massive and very ancient looking in comparison to the surrounding trees. He's a great old white oak with a huge canopy. Love that tree! We're guessing he predates many of the farms, probably one of the shade trees left to stand.

 

[Jstpssng]

I believe that it was mentioned before... but the width of the growth ring shows how fast the tree grew at that age. If you've had your land for a while and remove a tree next to the stump of another which you cut years ago, you can see the difference.

Last winter I was driving past the University Forest of my Alma Mater... the student timber harvesting crew had brought some aspen veneer out to roadside. Just to be a smart ***** I stopped, counted growth rings back to the year that I graduated; circled that ring with a lumber crayon and wrote "Class of 1980" ;-)

T h e tree had grown about 15" in diameter... from pulpwood to veneer.
:thumbsup:

 

[/pine]

FWIW...

Direct reading of tree ring chronologies is a learned science, for several reasons. First, contrary to the single ring per year paradigm, alternating poor and favorable conditions, such as mid-summer droughts, can result in several rings forming in a given year. In addition, particular tree species may present "missing rings", and this influences the selection of trees for study of long time spans. For instance, missing rings are rare in oak and elm trees.[3]

Wikwpedia...

 

[clemsonfor]

Besides growing conditions for the year of the ring, the spacing also can show physical stresses on the trunk. You can have rings that are wide on one side of the tree and narrow on the opposite side.

This is called compression wood or tension wood.

Ring counting is accturate, but you need to know that there is eary wood and late wood. so there is one dark ring and one light ring per year. One is put on in the growing season and the other during the dormant season. this is more noticeable in larger rings. Some trees is hard or next to impossible to see rings in some trees in others they show up well. A tree that its hard is Poplar down here. Rings are usually larger when a treee is young and growing faster, when trees get older they slow down. This changes depending upon the species of tree. Sy for example certain oak trees and conifers are extremely long lived but some fruit type trees have a very short life span. Ring width can also be small due to dry years or stresses like too much pruned off of it by man or nature, insect infestation or over crowding by other trees.

There can also be false rings, these happen when you have a very wet spring and a dry first part of summer and then a very wet end of summer.

 

[clemsonfor]

I hadn't realized that. Also relevant is that certain trees, hardwoods, always have thinner rings than other softer trees. And I think that the rings in the earlier years of growth are always thinner than later years. I only count the rings in big trees. I had two red oaks fall during Hurricane Irene, one 94' tall, the other 97'. They were 105 years old IIRC.

This is not true. Some hardwoods yes others no. A Cottonwood, Populus Deltoideus (spelling??) will have way bigger rings under normal growing condidtions than out common loblolly pine (not the 5th gen seedlings or clones or anything). Water oaks can have 1/2' rings early on as well whcich is similar to our pines here as well, Poplar and sweetgum similar growing pattern.

And also rings under normal conditions should almost always at least in my region will be BIGGER early on in life. The only exception is say if that tree started life in a supressed situation and was in the under story and it took 20 years or so to get the height or waiting on a tree near it to be cut down or die to allow it light to grow and flourish. If were talking open grown trees where they get all the light they need for growth they will be bigger early on.

And yes i do know what i am talking about. I am a professional forester. For reference so that it will give some credibility to what i said.