New Pin Oak Donated to Mont Alto

A 40 foot tall Pin Oak (Quercus palustris) was donated by Alumnus Jerry Klancer to the Penn State Mont Alto arboretum. The tree was planted in the field in front of the Police Services Building this past Tuesday. This is a great site as pin oak likes wet, clay soils. Thanks also to Davey Tree Company for transporting and planting the tree with their tree spade.

Jerry Klancer, Brian, and John Blake with the tree in the background.

A slide show of the planting:


photos by Craig Houghton and Peter Linehan

Mont Alto Academic Festival

Forestry students competed in the Mont Alto Academic Festival on April 16th. They cleaned up in the Science/Technology

• First Place: Chance Yeckley and Tiffany Roddy for "Meeting of the Pines Natural Area"
• Second Place: Kevin Braun and Eric Monger "The Distribution of American Chestnuts on Oak Road"
• Third Place: Logan Droppa for "Mapping Ornamental Trees: Korean Tetrainum and Amur Corktree"

Other forester presentations included:

• Matt Reitzel "Identifying and Mapping Fir Trees on Campus
• Andrew Baker " Practical Use of Geographic Information System (GIS) in Developing Forest Management Plans on Privately Owned Forest Land in Washington County, Pennsylvania"

Chance and Tiffany



Eric and Kevin


Logan


Andrew

Ornamental Cherry Trees

P1030397
Originally uploaded by P_Linehan.

These beautiful cherry trees were in full bloom today outside the Shippensburg Borough Police Department. At first I thought they were the result of years of intense pruning. It turns out that these Weeping Higan Cherry (Prunus subhirtella) trees are the result of numerous branches grafted to a single stem. They certainly add a dramatic element to the landscape.

Presentation by Dr. Finley

The overview of his presentation is that of the 58% of Pennsylvania that is forested, much of the land is privately owned and the size of the land is being parcelized (broken into smaller and smaller tracts). Since most land owners who harvest their forests do not hire a forester, the result is high grading and not thinking about the future forests. They are not waiting for adequate regeneration and what does manage to regenerate is not what we want to see. The main tree species that are regenerating are red maple and black birch. Deer don't eat them or fern. The fern shades out and filters the light needed by the tree seedlings and then if oak regeneration does manage to out grow the fern, the deer browse it off. If the deer don't browse it off, then the oak has to compete with the faster growing birch and maple.

Using tests such as the ASID test and fencing out deer, we can see that the deer, fern, and competition as well as invasive insects like the Gypsy moth paint a very bleak picture for the oak. One of the things that we can do is educate the public and try to use best management practices to ensure a strong forest in the future.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/foresthealth.aspx This website discusses the concern for deer and Gypsy moth, which relate to the decrease in oak regeneration and its component in our forests, especially in our future forests.

Contour Lines Added to Google Maps

I saw in the Google LatLong blog yesterday that Google has added contour lines to the terrain view. This capability was added by Iljya Kalai, a Google intern. Follow this link to the blog posting.

Here is a map I made of Mount Washington in New Hampshire:


View Larger Map

Mount Washington is the highest point on the east coast of the USA.

I am not sure how they select the contour interval. It seems to be 40 feet.

Here is another map of the Waynesboro Reservoir:


View Larger Map

This one also seems to have a 40 foot interval, too. It will be interesting to check other regions, such as the Rockies. I do like the effect of contours and shading to show elevation. This is a great option. It turns the online maps into much more of a professional tool.