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January 11- We traveled northeast with Steve Ward and identified CFI Point 168. We ten traveled north, and then back again southwest, sampling hemlock along the way.
January 12- Two groups explored Stand 1 from Daniel Shay's Highway. One traveled north and located the CFI Point 171. They traveled back sampling Hemlock throughout the stand, but found no infestation. The second group began at CFI Point 168 and sampled hemlock in the southern portion of the stand finding light infestation.
January 16-We traveled southeast looking for CFI Point 151 and believe that we located it or were in vicinity but we were unsure. We sampled hemlock along the way and then traveled southwest toward Daniel Shay's Highway and walked back along the road.
January 17- We walked southwest along a path and then the river in order to locate CFI Point 152, but were unable to locate it. We walked back along the path, sampling hemlock along the way
January 19- We walked along a path to the reservoir and divided into two groups. The northern group located CFI Point 153, while sampling hemlock. The second group sampled hemlock along the reservoir in the southern portion of the stand.
| To view where these stands are located on a full map of the reservoir click here |
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At the first hemlock stand, we examined two random branches of the hemlock. Because hemlock woolly adelgid spread rapidly on an entire tree and can infest any location on the tree, we only searched the bottom branches, which have a high probability of infestation compared to the higher branches. There have been few identified patterns of adelgid spread regarding understory and canopy trees, so we sampled a diverse selection of hemlocks in both regions of the stands. We searched for elongate hemlock scale and rated the adelgid infestation. Branches infested with 0 adelgid is a 0, 1-10 is a 1, 10-20 is a 2, and 20-30 is a 3. We also rated the percent of crown health, but quickly abandoned this practice based on the subjectivity of this rating. We marked each identified hemlock with a GPS unit.
We evaluated the second hemlock stand in the same manner, without attempting to rate the crown health. A number of factors can weaken the hemlock crown including water stress, over-crowding of forest, scale, and other natural pests.
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Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI)
Quabbin forest managers in the early 1960s created a grid system in order to assess forest health and identify tree species in the region. Each plot, known as a Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) plot, is identified by a center point that is identifiable only by approximate description of their locations and estimations of GPS coordinates. The imprecise records of the plots and the possibility that the identifying marks, marked trees and stakes, can be hidden or have been disturbed or moved make them difficult to discover. We only successfully identified CFI points. |
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The red colored regions indicate identified hemlock stands, although, as seen in the map, we sampled some in surrounding areas and found some individual hemlock trees. The smallest dots mapped on the stand represent hemlock stands sampled where adelgid was not present.
The blue stars represent the actual locations of CFI points we were able to discover. According to our GPS measurements CFI point 169 in Stand 1, which was supposed to be located at longitude -72.3892, latitude 42.255, was located according to our measurements at latitude-72.2337 and 42.2731 or longitude-72.389318, lattitude 42.412103. CFI point 171 was supposed to be located at longitude -72.389, latitude 42.4626. but we found it at longitude -72.389407, latitude 42.462193 or longitude -72.38947, latitude 42.462232. In Stand 2, CFI point 151 was supposed to be at longitude 72.3991 and latitude 42.412, but we marked it at longitude 72.399052, latitude 42.412103. CFI point 153 which was supposed to be located at longitude -71.3794, latitude 42.4119 was actually located at longitude 72.38, latitude 42.4119.
In the first stand, we discovered no adelgid infestation in the northern portion of the stand, but in the southern portion of the we found a mild infestation, once we moved away from the road and the river. Both canopy and understory trees were infested. Although, the northern portion of the stand seems relatively unaffected, the presence of adelgid in the southern region indicates a likelihood of the adelgid spreading to the northern region and fully infesting the entire stand. The trees of the
We discovered adelgid in most of the trees sampled in the second stand. There were patches where the infestation was less widespread, particularly near CFI point 153, however overall our evalutation shows that adelgid are present throughout the stand.
| To view where these stands are located on a full map of the reservoir click here |
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We only sampled the two stands aiming to evaluate the presence of adelgid in within the stand and approximate the degree of infestation in individual trees. According to Steve Ward, a forester of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the stands had not been inspected for several years and in these inspections there had been no evidence of adelgid infestation.
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Because there is no current method of treating adelgid infestation--the adelgid have no native predators in New England and wide scale pesticide use would be impractical in a forest setting--foresters can only assess the damage the adelgid would cause and whether or not to thin infected trees. Forest managers' best hope is for a cold winter to kill off many adelgid and slow the outbreak. Cold winters from in 2004 and 2005 slowed the outbreak when it was becoming most worrisome. However the warm winters of this year and last have left foresters and researches concerned and worried about health of hemlock in New England .
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