Tree Coring
All students in the team took a core of a tree.
Along with biologist Bill Schoonover, those that focused on the processing and analysis of the samples were Joy Wyman, Nate Moore, and Sam Pendleton
Purpose:
Students used 12 inch increment borers as tools to analyze tree cores.
The core is screwed into a tree at breast height, then a stylette is used to remove a thin (pencil thickness) cylindrical piece of wood from the bark to the center of the tree.
This allowed us to look at tree rings without significantly affecting the tree.
Background:
Some information it provided was the age of the tree, as well as evidence of the quality of the growing season for each year back through time. Each ring represented a year's growth of the tree. The rings consisted of a wide light colored band from the rapid spring growth, and a thin dark band as the growth slowed in autumn toward dormancy. Then, knowing that the first ring just inside the meristematic tissue beneath the bark represented last season's growth. Counting back each successive ring then could be correlated to each year back in time. Not only is it interesting to examine what the growing season was like the year you were born, but by comparing different trees across the landscape we could better correlate spring growth size with probable climate.
The Process:
The cores were carefully removed from the trees as to not break and lose the order of the fragile wood core. They were mounted with wood glue onto molding strips procured from the local hardware store. The cylindrical cores were flattened longitudinally with a belt sander so that it was shaped like a "D" for easier imaging of the rings. Next, the cores were placed on a flat-bed scanner by Sam Pendleton to be saved as a digital file for computer analysis. Using imaging software, you can zoom in to see the rings better and measure them more precisely.
Results:
Below is an example of one of the processed tree cores, taken from a Red Pine.