Determination of health and growth patterns of white pine and black oak in Gardiner, NY

Abstract

Dendrochronology is the technique of dating timber and tree trunk growth rings in order to study environmental change, past events, or archeological artifacts. During October of 2022, Dr. John Rayburn of the SUNY New Paltz Geology department and Emma Paulsen, a senior studying Environmental Geochemical Science, utilized increment borers to take tree ring samples of nine different trees on a Wallkill Valley Land Trust Easement. Data was collected from five white pine trees and four black oak trees and analyzed to date each tree. The majority of the trees of both species were planted in the 1960s. The tree ring width data was then compared with existing chronologies to observe the alignment as well as environmental occurrences that are evident in the tree rings. A regional drought is evident in the small tree rings of 1965 in both tree species. Furthermore, data from local eastern hemlock trees do not match recent growth patterns of the white pines, indicating that the white pines on the property are healthy and not under attack by invasive species. The black oak chronologies taken from the Wallkill Valley Land Trust Easement matched existing black oak chronologies from the area, increasing confidence in the chronologies that were constructed from this site. Keywords: Environmental Geochemical Science, environmental science, dendrochronology, increment borer, tree rings, tree ring measurement, tree ring dating, black oak, white pine