[NatureNS] Spruce growth

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Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2015 20:38:22 -0400
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Dear All,                                Dec 2, 2015
    When we horse logged one area in 2002 I marked one large good quality 
Spruce to be left as a seed tree. About 10 years later (2012) it developed 
needles for the last time. This fall I cut it for firewood. [A section of 
dry Spruce about 40 cm in diameter and 20 cm long will fit in our stove over 
a bed of coals in back and a short length of 1" iron pipe our front and burn 
12-14 hours; ideal for temperatures hovering around 0oC.]

    Cutting this provided an opportunity to see how it had done over time 
[and the main firewood for ~60 mild nights]. At about one metre up it was 52 
cm in diameter but only 61 years old. These woods were logged about 1950 so 
it was about one meter high at that time. There is no clear boundary between 
periods of rapid growth and less rapid growth but dividing the radius into 
four growth periods: the length in years, radius increment in mm, growth 
rate of radius in mm/year and mean increase in area/year for these growth 
periods were as follows.
28 yr., 191 mm, 6.8 mm/yr, 40.9 cm^2/yr.
10 yr., 39 mm, 3.9 mm/yr, 51.6 cm^2/yr.
7 yr., 14 mm, 2.0 mm/yr, 29.8 cm^2/yr.
16 yr., 16 mm, 1.0 mm/yr, 15.3 cm^2/yr.



Note: Mean increase in trunk cross-sectional area for a given period as 
cm^2/yr was obtained by calculating the area at the end of each period (as 
pi*r^2), subtracting initial area from final area and dividing this by 
period length.

Yt, Dave Webster Kentville 

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