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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Advertisement Email Story to a Friend January 24, 2006 Large ponderosa and sugar pines along the Highway 62 corridor near Prospect are in danger of dying because overgrown vegetation is robbing them of water and nutrients. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Trees under duress Small firs encroaching on sugar pines along Highway 62 near Union Creek will be cut to give the pines a longer life By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune PROSPECT — Scientists keeping tabs on the largest sugar pines in the roughly 1,000-acre grove between Prospect and Union Creek are worried. The giant pines in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest that draw oohs and awes from Highway 62 tourists are dying. "We’re losing three to five of those big trees every year," said Joel King, a soil scientist and district ranger for the Prospect and Butte Falls ranger districts. "In another 50 years there won’t be any of the big trees left." To preserve the huge trees, the U.S. Forest Service, after eight years of study and public input, has decided to launch what it calls the Big Pines project by removing the smaller white fir, Douglas fir and other trees that threaten 90 of the largest sugar and ponderosa pines within the Highway 62 corridor. Advertisement In addition, the agency is planning to thin the forest by removing small-diameter trees near its Prospect ranger station and along the forest border with the town of Prospect to reduce the wildfire threat to both. The work could begin as early as this summer, King said. A century of successful wildfire suppression along the historic highway corridor has created an unnaturally dense forest, sapping the strength of the trees by robbing them of water and soil nutrients, King said. Frequent low-intensity wildfires would normally kill vegetation now choking out the huge trees which are fire-resistant, he noted. A healthy tree can defend against a bark beetle attack by pushing the insects out with sap, scientists observe. "Those trees need a lot more space around them to thrive and combat the mountain pine beetle," said Ellen Goheen, a plant pathologist with the Rogue River-Siskiyou forest. The beetles are able to sense when a pine tree is stressed and vulnerable, she said, adding those beetles then use pheromones to attract other beetles to come to the weakened trees. Removing competing vegetation helps protect the trees’ health, thus enabling them to better withstand a beetle infestation, she added. Evidence of what the relatively small beetles can do can be seen just off the highway corridor in the Mammoth Pine, a centuries-old behemoth that died in the mid-1960s. The trunk stretches 224 feet; the stump measures 7 feet 11 inches in diameter. Stress caused by fire suppression set the tree up for the bug kill, King said. "The biggest trees we have here now are from 400 to 500 years old but will live 1,200 to 1,400 years if they have adequate resources," King said, adding the project’s goal is to allow the big trees to live out their lives. "Everyone I talk to says they want these big trees saved," he said, adding, "These trees are an earmark for the state of Oregon, for the West Coast." Anyone stopping at the popular Union Creek recreation area in the summer will often hear multiple languages because the big trees draw people from around the world, King observed. Given the chance to survive, the big trees should do well, King said, noting their thick bark makes them more fire-resistant than smaller trees. "But temperatures, for whatever reason, are getting warmer," he said. "... We’ve had fires that started earlier and burned later than ever before." On some sites along the corridor, there are now as many as 3,000 trees per acre, making the large trees susceptible to catastrophic wildfires, he said. The idea isn’t to thin the entire area, just within the canopy drip line of each big tree — 30 to 40 feet away from the trunk, he said. "These big trees have always had companion trees — we’re just talking about the small trees that have come in since fire suppression," he said of the thinning. Anyone with comments on the project should contact King at 560-3406. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at Trees under duress ">[email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback www.bingo.com Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker Custom Build Computers Discount Hotel Reservations online casinos news Ashley Furniture HomeStore Send Flowers Southern Oregon Loans California Casinos GMAT Prep Windermere Van Vleet Sports Equipment Online Casino Reviews Online Bingo Entertainment Guide Online Casino Fundraisers Sudoku Online Casinos Canada Online Pharmacy Advertisement s