Oldest tree you've cut?

[precaud]

I pulled this chunk of pinon off of the stack yesterday, I cut this standing dead down last year. I only get maybe a handful each year that are this big in diameter. Knowing that pinon is a slow-growth species, I decided to look up it's growth rate and estimate it's age.

The growth rate (diameter) of pinon is estimated at 200 years per foot. Apparently this is due to it's ability to stop growth during times of drought and resume growth when times are better:
(broken link removed to http://www.cerrilloshills.org/nature/trees.html#pi)

It's hard to tell from the photo, but this piece, which is from the middle of the trunk and not from the base, measures 14" diameter at the bottom. That makes it 233 years old. So this tree was a seedling just a few years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Kinda puts things into a different perspective.

This is why I will not cut down a live pinon for firewood.

 

[benjamin]

What, you didn't count the rings?

I didn't cut them, but I remember seeing big white oak stumps on a south slope that had 250-300 rings when I was little. I'll have to check some rounds tomorrow and get back to you.

 

[begreen]

We've had a couple firs taken down that were in the 200-250 year old range. But I didn't cut it. No way am I taking down a 100+ft tree.

 

[zzr7ky]

Hi -

The largest I've cut are 3' diameter standing dead, Ash. I notices that some of the Ash added a 1/2" of diameter a year! Must have had good sun, rain, etc..

The oldest tree I ever dismantled was a 5' diameter Oak. It was a monster tree felled by wind and erosion in a fence row. My buddy and I cut the trunk with a big cross cut saw. Two slices an evening, then wedged them up so we could load the 3/4 ton P/U. There was some punk in the center but we counted 200+ rings with more than a foot left in the center.

 

[smokinj]

Lets mill it and see what it looks like?

 

[Danno77]

Probably this standing dead oak. We took it down last year, I cut most of it up except for biggest part of the trunk, I only took two stove lengths out of the bottom part. I should see if I can count some rings.

 

[precaud]

Lets mill it and see what it looks like?

There's a little bit of rot on one edge where a branch takes off, but mostly remarkably clear inside. No rot at all as you go further up. The thing weighed a ton so I knew it was pretty intact internally - I had to cut it down to 5' length so I could move it...

 

[Cluttermagnet]

The big old Red Oak that died on us was about 80-90 years old. Too big for me- had a tree service take it down. I have yet to finish off all of that wood. Probably still have a half cord of it left. It was probably about a 4 cord tree. That's a big part of what got me started wood burning. The other part was when my supplier was quoting me 5.05 per gallon for No. 2 fuel oil during the last peak.

 

[Tony H]

I have a couple big Burr Oaks that I have cut some dead limbs off that are huge , the bigger one measures 16' round at the base and 11' round at 4' the other one is 15' at the base and 10' at 4' up the trunk.
I have no idea how old they are and could not find a web site that helped figure it out but they have got to be up there in years.

 

[precaud]

Wow Tony, that's humongous!

 

[LLigetfa]

I have a couple big Burr Oaks that I have cut some dead limbs off that are huge , the bigger one measures 16' round at the base and 11' round at 4' the other one is 15' at the base and 10' at 4' up the trunk.
I have no idea how old they are and could not find a web site that helped figure it out but they have got to be up there in years.

Would that be diameter or circumference? Standard unit of measure is DBH (diameter at breast height) but you saying "round" makes one think you are talking "around" (circumference).

 

[precaud]

"round" implies diameter... that's how I understood it, anyway.

 

[Battenkiller]

I didn't cut this one, but I did get a rough count of the rings - about 240. It was apparently felled as a part of an Adirondack lean-to build and left there to rot when it wasn't needed. Pretty old for such a small trunk. Not more than 100 yards away was the one my wife is standing in front of, which is a lot bigger but not the biggest around. I estimated it to be maybe 400 years old. These shots were taken during a canoe trip on the Oswegatchie River in the western Adirondacks. All of the big trees there are old growth pine that was never logged out due to the difficulty of removing the logs. Some of them are truly enormous, well over 100 feet tall.

Sadly, about 15 years ago, a microburst storm roared through this prime wilderness and leveled it, killing millions of old-growth white pines. All told, nearly 80,000 acres of irreplaceable trees were destroyed within minutes of hurricane force winds (over 100 MPH) blowing through the area, with another 70,000 acres severely damaged. We never saw it in its prime. These few majestic trees that escaped the brunt of the storm's fury are all that remain.


One chapter of the book, "At the Mercy of the Mountains" describes the harrowing ordeal of campers trapped in the blowdown.

 

[benjamin]

"round" implies circumference to me, that works out to 3-4' DBH, a pretty good sized oak, but not unheard of.

I checked my 41" diameter red oak rounds and they were only 135 years old, that thing grew like a weed for a hundred years and lingered on another 35. That piece was probably 20' up as the shell of the trunk was still standing, with about 3" shell thickness.

The really old ones grow in dry spots. I think I read somewhere about birch trees clinging to a cliff that were under a foot in diameter and over 200 years old.

 

[Cowboy Billy]

I read about cedar trees growing right out of the rock on the nigra escarpment are several hundred years old but not very big. The escarpment is limestone and runs into Wisconsin and our farm in the UP is on it.

Billy

 

[Tony H]

I have a couple big Burr Oaks that I have cut some dead limbs off that are huge , the bigger one measures 16' round at the base and 11' round at 4' the other one is 15' at the base and 10' at 4' up the trunk.
I have no idea how old they are and could not find a web site that helped figure it out but they have got to be up there in years.

Would that be diameter or circumference? Standard unit of measure is DBH (diameter at breast height) but you saying "round" makes one think you are talking "around" (circumference).

I measured circumference so the DBH would be 41" for the 11' circumference and 60" diameter at the base.
The trees are growing about 200yards from a river at 30' above the river level in sandy soil.

 

[ihookem]

I helped cut a 40" red oak last year. It was 147 years old as close as I could tell.

 

[Battenkiller]

A while back I posted a link to some pics of a guy sitting on top of a 6'+ diameter western red cedar trunk out in BC. I have a huge wedge of that truck in my basement (classical guitar wood). It has close to 50 grain lines per inch, making it around 1800 years old... give or take a couple centuries.

 

[Wood Duck]

I guess the oldest trees I have in the wood pile are oaks. Most of the larger ones seem to have been 14 to 16 inches dbh (just guessing, I measured after they were bucked up so I don't know which part was breast height). In good growing locations, these trees are only about 45 years old, I think, but we counted one from a drier mountain this weekend and found it was 75 years or more at a DBH of only around 14 inches. That was a White Oak.