Made a quick trip up to eastern Illinois in December to sample bottomland oak at Sielbeck Forest and Beall Woods, both of which have some very nice old growth oak. Sielbeck is just north of Metropolis IL, in the former channel of the Ohio River (8K years ago) and Beall Woods is adjacent to the Wabash River. Both locations have several species of spectacular old oaks (300+ years old) such as overcup (Q. lyrata), bur oak (Q. macrocarpa), swamp white […]
Had a great time last week with Matt Meko collecting tree-ring samples in Illinois from sites sampled by D. Duvick in 1980. We were joined at Ferne Clyffe St. Park by Justin Maxwell and his crew and and Kankakee St. Park and Starved Rock St. Park by Emma Bialecki (@emmabialecki). We saw some great old growth oak forest though there was a lot of invasive species in some areas. The highlight of the trip for me was sampling at Starved […]
In addition to sampling live trees, we were able to find a few dead standing snags and downed logs to sample. Hopefully these will help us get farther back in time than the living trees. For more pics see https://plus.google.com/+MatthewTherrell/posts/1yHufupf55b
Had a “great” trip to the WRNWR to sample old overcup oak (Quercus lyrata) along Scrubgrass Bayou, and by great I mean we didn’t perish though I thought we might at times given the lightning and terrible heat, insects, and noxious plants. Matt Meko is shown coring a nice mature overcup. For more pics see https://plus.google.com/+MatthewTherrell/posts/1yHufupf55b