Age without cutting ?

[bama20a]

May be a long shot,But are they away to tell the age of a tree before cutting it?
There is a white oak not far from me that the people are wanting it cut,Due to all the storms we are having, (I wouldn't touch it ;D) anyway my son pulled a tape around it at about 4' up & it was12' around it  ,
I havn't been posting pics because of my ol'puter ,But now I've got a good one I'll try to get pics up of it.

[SwampDonkey]

I measured an elm once at 6 feet up, 11.5 in circumference, so 44" in diameter. Yours would be 46" through.

To get at the age thing, you would need an increment borer to take a core out and count the rings. Another would be an old photo with family by the tree, when the tree was a 2-3" sapling and you know the year of the photo or age of a youngster in the photo. Add 10-15 years on. But if it's going to be cut down anyway, why bother aging it until it's down? People note births and deaths, but often forget to document yard trees when they planted them. Some may not even have been planted I suppose, as there are subdivisions built around the woods. Up here, we don't see that. Usually a house is on a bare lot on the front of a field and the trees get stuck in later. There are a few in the woods, but just about 100 % of the time that piece of woods was cut within the last 30 years.

[beenthere]

Age of the last 8 or so inches of growth would be about as good as you could get with an increment boring core, as the borers are limited in length. Surely wouldn't get a core to the tree's pith center, so only a guess on the growth rate for the first 3' of diameter growth.

[RynSmith]

I have an 18" increment borer so can get ~ 17 inches of core and I know they make some longer.  Doesn't mean I'd want to core on oak with it though...

[beenthere]

 :D :D
Be some different than a softwood... ;)
Been a few left in some of those white oak trees.
They would sure put a hurt on a saw.... :

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, white oak especially would be tough. I know hard maple is hard boring. ;D I'm pretty sure though, the borers can be had for longer than 18" as well. Those borers are not cheap. All ya need is some wax, like on a Robinson self tapping screw and lots of brawn. Like Ranger Rod. :D

[chevytaHOE5674]

Years ago installing permanent growth plots I had to core many a hard maple and red oak that required an 18" increment borer. My employer used to buy the bits by the dozen as many of them got left in the trees. We circled the broken bits with orange paint and wrote metal on the tree in case somebody ever cut inside the plots.

[beenthere]

 Wow!
Boring them at breast height too? 

Wonder how long the orange paint lasted?

[chevytaHOE5674]

Yep bored right at breast height, which means that the sawyer in the woods would cut below and above the broken bit but the sawmill would sure be in for a doozy.

I still remember where some of those plots are I should take a walk to them and see what they look like. There is one broken borer that I remember exactly where it is at, because it was a beautiful 20" hard maple that was veneer quality for the first 22~25 feet, and when we knocked some bark off to increment bore it looked to have birdseye. I remember cringing as the borer creaked into it and then went Snap..... But the protocol for the plots was core the closest tree to plot center.....

[SwampDonkey]

They do permanent sample plots (PSP) here to and go in every 10 years for assessment. I suppose a few hardwood get cored when the plot was established. All I ever did was the remeasures. But in most of the plots they were not old growth trees, so a 12-16 inch maple was about as big as I recall encountering on those plots. Also, a PSP is just a plot of land really, as the trees can be cut from them. They are interested in how trees grow on that site over time. A way to monitor forest health. I've gone to many plots that were all cut out. There were private woodlots. The owners know about the plots, but when they are measured at different times the owner isn't usually contacted. One reason I think is the plots are done on piece work, and it's hard to make money when your visiting half a day. Landowners are a much friendlier bunch up here to I guess. ;)

[WDH]

When coring a hardwood, the tendency is to pull out the core and then begin to examine it.  DON'T!  Take the borer out immediately .  Otherwise, the tree might have a permanent ornament.

[Phorester]

As Swamp says, try to find historical info on the tree or buildings around it.  Many times when a house is built, a tree or trees are planted within a year or two. 

You can extrapolate an approximate age of a large diameter tree with any size increment borer.  Take a core, determine the average number of years per inch of the core, multiple that by the tree radius (distance from the tree center to one edge) in inches.  Example; you take a 6" long core, count the rings and come up with 72.  Therefore average number of rings per radial inch = 12. Radius of the tree is 18". 12 rings per radial  inch x 18 inch radius = 216 years old.

Yes, it's only an estimate.  It's probably a minimum age of the tree, since you're only able to look at the last few decades of growth and are assuming that the growth rate is consistent for the entire lifetime of the tree. If it's a forest grown tree that could have been suppressed the first few decades of its life, it probably isn't. But it's closer than just eyeballing the tree's size and making a guess.

[Phorester]

This link might help. As others have said, I can only emphazize that trying to determine a tree's age simply by its trunk size is not very accurate.

http://forestry.about.com/od/silviculture/a/Estimating-A-Trees-Age.htm

As I've stated in these forums before, I have a 4" diameter "beaver biscuit" from a white oak that is 75 years old. Another one of a 12" diameter loblolly pine that is 23 years old. Another one of a 2" diameter white oak that is also 23 years old. I once bored a 12" diameter chestnut oak with an increment borer and found that it was 160 years old. Actual ring count on stumps of two trees cut down; a 30" diameter Norway maple stump (yard tree) that was 60 years old, a 16" diameter bradford pear stump (street tree) that was 18 years old.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, it's amazing over the years what some people think are young trees they left behind when they cut wood because they were smaller than the dominant trees that were all cut out. I see acres and acres of 3-6" fir that's a minimum of 50 years old (I have to cut a lot of it with a brush saw) , some looks like an umbrella, but it all will have lichens hanging off it, and about 1/4" of sapwood left, the rest on it's way to rot. Short nodes between whorls if you can even distinguish them. It will sometimes take off, but it's so full of rot that it won't matter much. It might get to 10" before it falls over or, most of the time, breaks off at 4 feet where the rot in the but end runs out. ;D

I've gotten rid of all that old small diameter fir on my ground. Most any 50 year old fir I have is a lot larger than 6" and chalk white. Have some 80 year old ones to, but they are over mature and no good, but still a good 20" dbh, not 6". ;)