Big Cottonwood found

[dgdrls]

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/2022/12/upstate-new-york-tree-hunter-just-discovered-the-biggest-tree-in-new-york-maybe-the-nation.html


Big one for sure,  the biggest Cottonwood I knew of was the Balmville Cottonwood which was removed in 2015.

NY registry of large tree's  https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/lands_forests_pdf/champcom.pdf

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[newoodguy78]

That's one impressive tree! Nice write up on it. 
I'm familiar with the area and that Hoosic River bottom ground grows plenty of those cottonwoods (the locals usually call them poplar) and they grow fast. Be interesting to know what that tree weighs. I've cut a decent amount of them and they are absolutely full of water. To the point of water literally running out of them when they hit the ground. It's like nothing I'd ever seen. 

[Walnut Beast]

Pretty Interesting!  I'll have to measure my big cottonwood. Definitely not as big as that beast

[Ianab]

Pretty impressive for such a short lived tree. Cottonwoods have been planted locally, and also grow pretty fast / big. If I remember I'll get a pic of one that's on our mail run. Probably planted as a stick ~100 years ago to stabilise the bank under the road, it's now a pretty serious tree. But probably only 1/2 the size of that one. 

The Cottonwood stand out on the left of this pic as they are bare in Winter, where the native forest is all evergreen. 





A crop of that picture, you can see the trunk of the tree beside the road for scale. 



 

But it's bigger than the "old growth" forest on the right. 

[SwampDonkey]

The Fraser river cottonwoods. :D Black cottonwood, not eastern cottonwood.  189ft tall ;) Record champion recorded is 156 ft and 134" dbh. But the taller one is bigger, have not seen dbh posted.

Vancouver Island Big Trees: Colossal Coastal Cottonwoods

[BAN]

 


Here's a good sized cottonwood we fell this year on a fire. Didn't measure it but it was over 6 feet I'd guess

[Walnut Beast]

Our state tree is the Cottonwood. Believe it or not it's threatened! From several factors from spray drift and so on. Hard to believe! It's our most harvested tree. Lots of pallets and grade stakes get made out of them. Article from 2013. 

https://ianrnews.unl.edu/nebraskas-state-tree-may-be-threatened

[Walnut Beast]

Here's a good sized cottonwood we fell this year on a fire. Didn't measure it but it was over 6 feet I'd guess

Was that tree salvageable for wood products?

[SwampDonkey]

The largest aspens I've seen around here 36-44" across dbh, around 100 foot is the max height. I had some guys come in and measure my yellow birch for the 'Great Trees of New Brunswick.' I said that ain't nothing look at that big aspen 20 feet over there, 40" across. Was a dead one though. Those big ones all died out now, old fire trees. The aftermath of a fire grows the best aspen up here. Suckered stuff dies before it's 10". The lot across the road from mine is full of dead suckered stuff criss crossed everywhere. The ash, maple and birch is the only hardwood that will live there. Aspen is wood pecker wood. :D I've got an acre I picked away some tipped over aspen from for firewood, it's a mangled mess in there. Cords of aspen rotten on the ground, no man's land. My cousin's lot next door looks like a war zone from all the down aspens. :D

[BAN]

Here's a good sized cottonwood we fell this year on a fire. Didn't measure it but it was over 6 feet I'd guess

Was that tree salvageable for wood products?

Probably not good for anything.  We were falling it back into the fire so that the embers that were burning in the top wouldn't cross over to the green side of line. It was federal ground and they rarely salvage anything from forest fires anyway.

[Walnut Beast]

Ban that was quite a picture you posted! Please post more interesting one in the future 👍

[Ed]

Used to be a monster Cottonwood near me, not that big,  probably 7' across. Impossible to measure as the poison ivy growing all around/up it had stems that were 3-4" diameter. So bad one couldn't see the bark on the trunk.
It grew at the top of a ravine in a nasty curve a few feet off the road. Pity the crew that had to clean up the mess when it died or tipped over.

Ed

[SwampDonkey]

Carolina poplars grow huge here and fast growing, seen some around 6' diameter. An awfully lot of them were planted where they shouldn't have been. They are not very wind firm in burst wind storms. The lateral roots will snap like a dry piece of cedar kindling. I was called to look at two one time, grown side by side in close proximity to a neighbors house. I suggested they be removed because of high probability of wind throw. Sure enough, and a freak of nature thrown in for good measure, a burst wind from a lightning storm took them two monsters down, only a week later. Luck was in the home owners' favor, the wind was NE and threw them toward the street and not on their houses.  

There was another on a bad curve on a street beside a grocery store. That had to be removed to.

[Ianab]

This is the poplar I mentioned earlier. It would have been planted years back to stabilise the bank below the road here. It's now in the process of eating Murray's boundary fence, but at least the road hasn't slipped into the gully.  :D

 

[moodnacreek]

Legend has it the Balmville tree was started from a riding switch [stick] carried from far away and stuck in the ground there. That could be as around here it is aspen not cottonwood. Short lived pioneer trees give way to intermediate or climax trees. However when these pioneers are all gone sometimes there is  one that would not die over in a corner somewhere, a seed tree, growing large and waiting a new 'field' to replant.

[SwampDonkey]

I saw a clump of large tooth aspen in Virginia in a typical round patch pattern that had colonized a small field that grew in from the sides and enclosed with other trees. It was odd in a forest of red oak, hickory and sycamore on those hills. ;D

[Kodiakmac]

A big, pure eastern cottonwood is pretty rare around here. I think we are at the extreme north edge of their tolerance zone.  But they will hybridize with black poplar and produce some pretty impressive trees - they call them Canada Poplar in these parts.  We have a few on our farm that are in excess of 15' circumference, and I have seen several along the St. Lawrence that are probably 20 feet around.

[KEC]

In New Yorks' Adirondacks, there are large tracts of maturing second growth forest. Much of the aspen has been shaded out, but as moodnacreek said, there will be that one holdout standing there waiting for an "event" such as a wind storm to re-populate. Any aspen that is near water is vulnerable to beavers. If you look at airial photos of the lakes and ponds there, they are all encircled with conifers that the beaver rarely eat.

[Jeff]

Here's a good sized cottonwood we fell this year on a fire. Didn't measure it but it was over 6 feet I'd guess

That is a great photo.

[BAN]

Here's a good sized cottonwood we fell this year on a fire. Didn't measure it but it was over 6 feet I'd guess

That is a great photo.

Thanks. You can kinda see the blocks we cut to stand on. Ground was still to hot to spend much time on.

[KEC]

When I hauled hardwood logs in the 1970's, IIRC, although the mill that I worked for did not usually want cottonwood, there was a market for large, long clear stuff that could be sawn for ladder rails. I don't even know if anyone even makes wooden ladders now.

[Old Greenhorn]

Oh yes, they do! San Francisco Fire Department has their own ladder shop. They use Ash, doug fir, and hickory.
 There's a good video here and a lot of love goes into these ladders.
Inside the Ladder Shop at the San Francisco Fire Department on Vimeo

[Ed]

Used to take my logs to Crossroads village to get milled. Part of Genesee county park system. Steam powered mill, they cut on shares. A good friend works there, he would mill my logs.
I always added a cottonwood or 2. Thats what they would take...lol. The guys wanted it for their toy shop. Had a group that made wooden toys to sell, it was their preferred material.
I loved it......

Ed

[Walnut Beast]

I bet that was pretty neat to see that steam mill running!

[Walnut Beast]

Oh yes, they do! San Francisco Fire Department has their own ladder shop. They use Ash, doug fir, and hickory.
There's a good video here and a lot of love goes into these ladders.
Inside the Ladder Shop at the San Francisco Fire Department on Vimeo

Thanks for sharing!! If you love wood then absolutely watch the short video Greenhorn posted!!!!! Absolutely fantastic and very interesting!!!!!!