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New York Forests 2012

This report summarizes the second annual inventory of New YorkÕs forests, conducted in 2008-2012. New YorkÕs forests cover 19.0 million acres; 15.9 million acres are classified as timberland and 3.1 million acres as reserved and other forest land. Forest land is dominated by the maple/beech/birch forest-type group that occupies more than half of the forest land. The sound wood volume on timberland has been rising and is currently 37.4 billion cubic feet, enough to produce saw logs equivalent to 93.7 billion board feet.

The Forests of Southern New England, 2012

This report summarizes the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) forest inventory data, collected from 2008 to 2012, for Southern New England, defined as Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. In addition to providing regional and state-level summaries, the reports highlights three focus plots, one average or prototypical plot from each State, as a means to better tell the story of the forests of the region. Forests cover an estimated 5,128,000 acres or 59 percent of Southern New EnglandÑ1,736,000 acres in Connecticut (56 percent of the State), 3,028,000 acres in Massachusetts (61 percent), and 364,000 acres in Rhode Island (55 percent). There was no substantial change in the area of forest land between the current, 2012, and the previous, 2007, FIA inventories.

Forests of Vermont and New Hampshire 2012

The first full remeasurement of the annual inventory of the forests of Vermont and New Hampshire was completed in 2012 and covers nearly 9.5 million acres of forest land, with an average volume of nearly 2,300 cubic feet per acre. The data in this report are based on visits to 1,100 plots located across Vermont and 1,091 plots located across New Hampshire. Forest land is dominated by the maple/beech/birch forest-type group, which occupies 60 percent of total forest land area.

Long-Term Effects of Forest Liming on Soil, Soil Leachate, and Foliage Chemistry in Northern Pennsylvania

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) decline disease, decreased growth, and regeneration failure have been related to a low supply of Ca and Mg. There is increased interest in augmenting cation availability via liming, but there is little information on the amounts of lime required and the longevity of the lime treatment. A single application of 22.4 Mg ha-1 of dolomitic limestone in 1985 at four forested sites in Potter County, PA has shown that soil, soil water, and sugar maple foliage chemistry are significantly altered by liming and the changes in soils and foliage persist as long as 21-yr post-treatment. By 2001, only 3 kg ha-1 of lime remained undissolved while increases in exchangeable Ca and Mg, and pH continued through 2006 at depths up to 35 to 45 cm.

United States Standards for Grades of Maple Syrup

Voluntary U.S. grade standards are issued under the authority of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, which provides for the development of official U.S. grades to designate different levels of quality. These grade standards are available for use by producers, suppliers, buyers, and consumers. As in the case of other standards for grades of fresh and processed fruits, vegetables, and specialty crops these standards are designed to facilitate orderly marketing by providing a convenient basis for buying and selling, for establishing quality control programs, and for determining loan values.

Differential impacts of calcium and aluminum treatments on sugar maple and American beech growth dynamics

Acid deposition induced losses of calcium (Ca) from northeastern forests have had negative effects on forest health for decades, including the mobilization of potentially phytotoxic aluminum (Al) from soils. To evaluate the impact of changes in Ca and Al availability on sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) and American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) growth and forest composition following a major ice storm in 1998, we measured xylem annual increment, foliar cation concentrations, American beech root sprouting, and tree mortality at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (Thornton, New Hampshire) in control plots and in plots amended with Ca or Al (treated plots) beginning in 1995.

Population dynamics of sugar maple through the southern portion of its range: implications for range migration

The range of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) is expected to shift northward in accord with changing climate. However, a pattern of increased sugar maple abundance has been reported from sites throughout the eastern US. The goal of our study was to examine the stability of the sugar maple southern range boundary by analyzing its demography through the southern extent of its distribution. We analyzed changes in sugar maple basal area, relative frequency, relative density, relative importance values, diameter distributions, and the ratio of sapling biomass to total sugar maple biomass at three spatial positions near the southern boundary of the speciesÕ range using forest inventory data from the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis program over a 20 year observation period (1990Ð2010).

Calcium and aluminum impacts on sugar maple physiology in a northern hardwood forest

Forests of northeastern North America have been exposed to anthropogenic acidic inputs for decades, resulting in altered cation relations and disruptions to associated physiological processes in multiple tree species, including sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.). In the current study, the impacts of calcium (Ca) and aluminum (Al) additions on mature sugar maple physiology were evaluated at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (Thornton, NH, USA) to assess remediation (Ca addition) or exacerbation (Al addition) of current acidified conditions. Fine root cation concentrations and membrane integrity, carbon (C) allocation, foliar cation concentrations and antioxidant activity, foliar response to a spring freezing event and reproductive ability (flowering, seed quantity, filled seed and seed germination) were evaluated for dominant sugar maple trees in a replicated plot study.