If someone who doesn't know squat about trees encounters a freshly cut down tree with what appears to be 167 rings, how old is the tree? The tree is a cottonwood that obviously has been perched atop the high river bank for many years because it's four or five feet in diameter, or so I have been led to believe. The initial report was 167 years old. But some sources claim that cottonwoods seldom live past 100 years and probably never more than 130 years. In 1850 there were virtually no settlers anywhere near this tree. Wandering groups of Osage Indians hunting and trapping would have been about the only visitors. Uncontrolled prairie fires tended to eliminate trees everywhere except very close to water. If it's only half that old, say 84 years, that puts it's start in 1933. Very believable but maybe not enough time to create such a large diameter. I have not seen it, so have no other clues to provide.
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populus_deltoides
"Eastern cottonwoods typically live 70 to 100 years, but they have the potential to live 200 to 400 years if they have a good growing environment."
Dendrochronology is hardly rocket surgery. But I can understand your confusion. I too doubt a cottonwood has survived 167 years.
Lots of softwoods have unique annular rings which sometimes can almost appear as two rings. On the other hand hardwoods and slower growing trees have distinct annular rings.That might give credence to the theory it may only date from the thirties. I suggest you take some good pics and get someone down to the A & M to look at it.
I have personally seen a cottonwood that volunteered in 1968 at my folk's house by Momma Cash's clothesline post. In 1995 I paid over a thousand bucks to have it cut down and removed. It measured 46" at waist height in less than thirty years.
ps - you didn't count the rings all the way across to the other side did you?? 😉
I have not been near it.
That's what we call a medium small tree.
At risk of coming across as a know it all, I'll offer what I've learned as a logger, timber feller and sawmill owner.
Rings are a product of seasonal variations. A tree in certain climate regions of the equator may not exhibit any rings due to the minor seasonal variations.
In my area we have generally warm wet springs, hot dry summers and dry falls followed by relatively cold and wet winters.
Trees here normally develop a light and wide spring ring and a dark, thinner ring that develops during the slow growing period of summer and fall.
In some years we experience a wet and warm fall. During these years, trees may develop a "false" ring which resembles a spring ring followed by a very thin late fall dark ring formed as growth slows down prior to winter dormancy.
During years of dry springs and periods of drought, the spring-wood rings may be virtually non-existant.
All that being said, most trees in my area produce one spring and one summer ring per year. Most persons will identify the summer ring as the annual ring.
So long story short, it depends on your seasonal rain and temperature variations.
I have no idea what that might be in the land of enlightened bovine.
[USER=297]@clearcut[/USER]
Does this help?
http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/chanute/kansas/united-states/usks0101
You can determine the age of a fish in a similar manner by counting the growth rings on one of its scales.
I would venture that since the tree is located next to a shallow aquifer, is of a species dependant on consistent water availability, and being as the rainfall is somewhat consistent throughout the growing months, the variation in growth rate would be primarily affected by the annual fluctuaton of day length and temperature range.
My guess is false rings and missing rings would be fairly rare and likely result in only one new set of rings per year.
A tree's age can be influenced by soil chemistry and structure. For instance out west the digger pine typically only grows for 70 years before its mass becomes too great for its root structure. However if soil type at a location cause a slower rate of growth, the digger pine can grow for 300 years and on occasion even much longer.
I would bet you have a 167 year old tree plus the number of years the tree took to pass the sapling stage.
167 is a very possible age, especially near a river. I do agree with Clearcut, that it would take an experienced individual to properly count the rings. Cottonwoods can be very fast growers, so seasonal variations could easily look like additional rings in the same year.
Not to sound like a know-it-all either, but I have a BS in Forestry. 😉
Here in the prairie cottonwoods generally develop a shallow but wide spreading root system. Their size seems to be their nemesis at times. With storm winds and shallow roots they usually are toppled over when the combination of wet soil and high winds hit that sweet spot. And almost all large mature cottonwoods develop internal rot. I've seen a good number of large (30" +) cottonwoods with hollow trunks that can hide several raccoons.
Interesting cottonwood tidbit:
In 1922 my grandfather farmed a portion of the Red River bottom near a little town called Hastings, OK. Being a frugal (spelled c-h-e-a-p) fellow, he and my uncles utilized the cottonwood trees that volunteered on the sand bars in the Red River for an inexpensive and plentiful source of fence posts. We took my uncle down to that old farm site in about 1972 for a trip down memory lane.
The quarter mile drive to the house was lined with a variety of dead or dying cottonwood trees, all fairly large and in various stages of dying. The cottonwoods that lined the lane were cut green 6 to 8 inch trees that were originally fence posts, sprouted and taken root. From the spacing it appeared as though probably only one in four or five 'posts' had grown back to a tree. My uncle related that cutting green cottonwoods was a sticky and smelly mess. He also mentioned they didn't make very long-lived posts either. Most had to be replaced within a few years.
Some cottonwoods can get really, really big....
Contrary to popular belief, many trees do not put on a ring every year. Sometimes they put on more than one ring, or they might not put on a ring in a given year at all. Some trees produce what are called false rings, and they can be determined only by looking at cellular structure. To get a more reliable, accurate age, one might have to do what is called cross dating, which is a fairly complex science, and it takes a good number of trees in order to do it correctly, at least 20. We have a wood science lab here where we have cross dated many trees and correlate them statistically to water levels, weather, climate, droughts, sedimentology, etc. It is a fascinating science. Ring spacings for non-complacent trees (trees that react to stimuli with varying ring widths) yields some incredible things about our past dating as far back as the ages of the trees studied.
