Abstract
SUNY ESF has five properties located within New York State that make up its 25,000 acres of forestland. Four of these properties are located within the Adirondack Park and one is located 30 minutes south of ESF’s Syracuse campus.
Each of the properties has its own set of continuous forest inventory (CFI) procedures that were developed by Bruce Breitmeyer, Adirondack Forest Property Manager, and Mike Gooden, Adirondack Forest Technician. Each property is inventoried every 10 years, weather and personnel depending.
CFI plots were established in 1981. A grid overlay (14 chains by 14 chains) was established on the Heiberg Forest map. Potential CFI plots (222) were determined for each grid intersection that appeared on the map. Reference information (distance and direction) was determined from known locations on the property for initial establishment of plot location on the ground. Compass and pacing was used to initially locate each plot in the field. A three-foot metal conduit stake with plot location tag attached was installed for each CFI plot center.
Complete re-measurement of the Heiberg CFI system was done in 1990 and 2000 (213 actual plots). Plots were generally re-located in the field using reference information and field notes from initial establishment and re-measurements. GPS locations were also collected for each CFI plot in 2000 by FOReST (Forest Organization Remote Sensing Technology), a NASA funded research project.
At the initial measurement, trees were numbered with tube paint and a horizontal mark was made at the point of the diameter measurement. In the 1990 measurement, aluminum number tags were used to replace the painted numbers as the method for identifying the trees. The numbered tags were nailed (aluminum nails only) to the tree so that the top of the nail shaft was at the dbh measurement point and the tag was facing the plot center. In general, trees on the plots were numbered consecutively for record keeping purposes starting at TRUE NORTH and proceeding in a clockwise direction. Ingrowth trees (trees not previously measured, but now with a dbh equal to or greater than 3.6 inches) are numbered as they are encountered when starting from true north and proceeding clockwise.