Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Plot Disturbance From Recent Storms


While visiting my twenty-five plots this past week, I observed that nearly twenty-five percent of them had been effected by recent wind and snow storms.  Here in University Park, PA we received a record snowfall this October 15th.  It was the earliest recorded snowfall with standing accumulation and it caused lots of damage to trees.  In the Hartley Wood there were many large trees and branches downed from the weight of the snow.  Some of this woody debris fell onto my sampling plots and made it impossible for me to thoroughly investigate those areas.  I will not be including collections from this past month in any statistical analysis of the plots.  This should  eliminate any skewing effect caused by the reduction in sampling for these effected plots.  The image to the top left shows a sampling plot in the early part of October.  The image to the bottom left is the same plot post storm with debris covering the entire area of the plot.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, early storm damage. Is there any way to determine the last time this occured inthis location, or do you have to refer to meteorological records? We had an early heavy snow here and it stressed many of the native species I grow in my resicential naturescape, but they recovered admirably. Congrats on the PPA selection.
    cpb

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