Help with this oak

[SwampDonkey]

I'd place bets on that one Tom.

[SwampDonkey]

I cut an ash that was 22-24 rings to the inch and it was 20", so a 300 year old one doesn't take an extremely long borer. I think you can get 16" and 20" borers, maybe longer.

I have a scanned image in the gallery, talked about it many times in threads.

[miking]

miking
Tell us about taking core samples and determining the tree is over 300 years old.

Have a 12" borer and took the samples in I believe 1999. Both are chinquapin oaks on steep dry hillsides and in the neighborhood of ~30" dbh. Though the borer couldn't reach the center of the tree, the rings can be counted then estimated by comparing the known rigns by the known core length, then projecting the rest. I remember one was determined to be 368 yo and the other 324 based on the ring data. I know that younger trees grow faster than older, so I suspect the unreachable inner rings may well be larger and thus faster growing but I still believe that conservatively, both of these trees are still 300+ and still growing. In addition and as a side note, both of these trees are in association with native hill prairies and have certainly experienced numerous prairie fires to boot. They are truly a marvel to look at and wonder about. I also have cored white oaks nearby that also are near 300 and one wo in Springfield that I counted 440 rings in with a 15" borer.

[SwampDonkey]

Not so much oak maybe, but we have trees that still look like seedlings or maybe 6 feet tall max after 50 years of growth under suppression. Some have to be read under microscope. That would be the shade tolerant species under hardwood canopy, sometimes under softwood as well, but it tends to be mostly dead under thick softwood canopy. But not many get big afterward except maybe hemlock and red spruce, maybe sugar maple or beech as well. Balsam fir no, another 30 years and it's dead. I suppose if could reach 18" by then if released, but rare if suppressed that long.

[miking]

That's very true. Some of the tightest rings around here I've seen were shagbarks growing under the canopies of larger oaks. If memory serves me they were something like 6" dbh and 80 years. However those growing in the canopy gaps were the same size but considerably faster growing despite growing within meters of each other. I also remember an American ash that was growing under oak that was 84 years at the ground and about 2 inches in diameter.

[Phorester]

Age of trees with diameters larger than an increment borer's length can be extrapolated as BEENTHERE says.  I bore as far as I can, measure the core length to an exact  inch (for instance if it's 6.5 inches long, I drop back to the 6" spot).  Then count all the rings in that length of core, divide by the number of inches to get an average number of years per inch, then multiply that by inches of radius. I might hedge that number based on where the tree is growing, etc. Works pretty well.  I estimated the age of 2 yard trees in different yards by this method.  One was 135, the other 180. Both homeowners said that's when the houses were built. Since it would have been logical that trees were planted in a yard when the house was new, I figured it was pretty close to the trees' actual ages.

I also have a chart at my office that estimates tree age by species, based on the diameter.  Don't know how in the world  these were determined.  I've checked it with actual tree cores and it sure is close.

As far as ages and sizes, I've seen a 30" diameter Norway maple yard tree that was 60 years old. It died from verticillium wilt and was cut down, so I could count the growth rings on the stump. I've counted rings on stumps of street trees in our town that were cut down.  One had a 16" stump and was 24 years old. The flip side -  Bored a 12" diameter chestnut oak on top of a steep, dry, south facing ridge that was 160 years old. I have a 4" diameter white oak beaver biscuit at my office that has 75 rings in the radius.

[locustoak]

Hm...what happened to flip?   I would love to see more pictures of this ancient tree, and possibly get my hands on a slab of the butt.

[clww]

That sounds bigger than the oak I'm currently working on. I'd like to see pics, too.