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I looked at a tree about 2 miles from the center of Conway last night
(attached pictures). The owner called a couple days ago, referred
by a local state forester. The tree is on top of a hill that was
heavily logged about 2 years ago. My GPS indicated about 885 ft
elevation. It is 8" DBH and about 45-50' tall, with heavy
blossoms in the crown (all above 30' unfortunately) and quite a bit of
old mast on the ground. I could not find any sign of blight.
I did not find any indication of viable nuts in the mast I examined but
only looked at a dozen or so - a thunderstorm was moving in. Owner
said the tree has had a lot of burs the last 2-3 years since he found
it. There was what appeared to be a seedling (3-4' tall) about 30
feet away and a small tree (2-3" diameter) at another spot 30-40
feet away (maybe sprout, but not obvious) - no blight evident in these
either.<br><br>
We have apple picking ladders up to 24' tall, but I don't think these
would work here, even reaching from the top with a hook as the tree
doesn't have any branches in the middle (below the crown) to set a ladder
into to hold it away from the trunk far enough to be able to reach up
into the edges of the crown. By the way - I can provide one of
these ladders if there are other places they would work out - they are
quite light (about 20 lbs) with long spikes on the bottom (drive into
ground for stability) and can be set into fairly small limbs by an
experienced user. It does take some skill and nerve to use these
around the edge of a big tree as they must be set close to vertical when
the supporting branches are small.<br><br>
The woods in the area (same owner) are being logged now (thinning under
forest management plan guidance) and access to the tree was about a mile
in from town road, mostly uphill on a logging road. The road is
being used by heavy logging equipment now so most of the way to the tree
was quite wide and driveable although greasy due to rain earlier in the
day. I had no trouble in my 4 wheel drive pickup and I think a 2
wheel drive with good ground clearance could make it in dry
conditions. However the last couple hundred yards is a branch off
the main logging road, up a steep hill and the brush has grown in some
since it was used a couple years ago to log the top of the hill.
The owner is very interested/supportive and suggested doing some road
improvement if needed. I have not had any experience with bucket
trucks so don't know if the hill was too steep or not. I currently
don't have any contacts for a bucket truck either.<br><br>
The GPS coordinates for the tree are: 42 31.020, 72 41.186 and the owner
is Jack Lochhead, 130 Reedsbridge Rd., Conway.<br><br>
I have more, higher resolution pictures I can send to individuals on
request. I also collected some leaves, a small branch and
burs. Is this something we are interested to pursue for this year
(or next)? <br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=2><i>Brian Clark<br>
42B Clark Rd.<br>
Ashfield, MA 01330<br>
413-625-2791, cell 507-269-4249<br>
brianeclark@hughes.net</i></font> <br>
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