March 23, 2023
The cover photo is a Loblolly Pine. It dominates this mesic upper hardwood habitat.
I have a iPhone 14 Pro with a LIDAR scanner. Using the Measure app is pretty easy like most things Apple. The link can tell you if your model has LIDAR but it seems like it is iPhone 12 Pro & up and various iPad Pro models.
Here’s a screen shot of the display measuring a tree. This is a Southern Magnolia. The bark on younger trees is smoother...
It’s really easy. Aim the circled dot at the starting point and click + and slide over to end point and click again. Left to Right or Right to Left does not matter. Distance shows. To save the image you use the lower right camera button. Obviously the Clear button does that.
It’s quite accurate, at least as accurate as my homemade tape that measures the circumference and converts to diameter. Some call it a DBH tape — Diameter at Breast Height. Our Foresterbob can correct and explain further if he likes.
So that’s it! The rest of these screenshots are me going around my 5 acres of Panhandle woods and measuring the largest. There’s the upper drier and the lower wetter — each with their own set of trees.
Upper Hardwoods
Black Cherry
Very big Live Oak on east side of mobile home. Cost me $350 to have “$200 Charlie” cut the big limb extending over roof. He also cut another 6 “too close” trees the first few years.
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One of several Pignut Hickories going across the middle of 5 acres where mobile home is. The middle clearing is prime spot for owls and hawks to roost, nest, and find prey.
These are found upper to lower but not really wet ground.
Sweetgum next to mobile home — should have been cut 35 years ago.
Loblolly Pine halfway down the hill — and the cover photo tree
and these are mostly at bottom of hill.
Spruce Pine — the one the Barred Owls like to roost in and right near the beaver pond. Small Spruce Pine and Bay tress are prime beaver night-time snacks.
Tulip Poplar — Liriodendron
Sweet Bay — well I could measure from another angle and get bigger… Magnolia virginiana
That’s it — add some titles and out to you in time to share your nature observations of the day. Hey — it’s not even 4 PM Eastern!
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My dad would be 100 years old today; lived to 94. I like to scare young people with factoids like “my grandpa was born in the 1880s.” He was still farming the same crappy 80 acres well into his 80s. Crappy as the soil was full of flint. A small herd of Black Angus was his last break-even attempt. Great view of the Genesee River valley tho.
