Foggy Virginia Pines

While out working yesterday, I noticed periodic clouds hanging around a clump of Virginia Pines.  It was as though little wisps of fog were drifting from the branches.

Like many plants at this time of year, pines are in full bloom.  The flowers aren’t showy, but they stand out nicely against a background of green pine needles.

Pines produce separate male and female flowers that appear at different locations on the tree.  These are male flowers, responsible for producing large quantities of wind born pollen.

The slightest breeze carries clouds of pollen away from the flowers.

Giving the branch a light tap releases an avalanche of pollen.  As a child, I learned that tapping a pollen laden pine branch, beneath which my sister was standing, was a sure way to get caught up on the current disciplinary doctrines being practiced by my parents.

This is the female flower, the desired destination for all of that pollen.  It looks like plenty has found this particular flower.  Of course, most of the pollen never reaches this point.  It’s wind carried pollen that is the bane of many allergy sufferers.

There is a small area that I have allowed to grow up into a pine thicket.  The thicket grew up around a few large Virginia Pines that had managed to colonize the field several decades ago.  There are a few other single large Virginia Pines scattered around the fields, but the small trees surrounding them were all cleared away to make room for the prairie vegetation.  Since the Virginia Pine is a native species that arrived here under its own power, I thought that a miniature pine forest might be an interesting addition to the diversity of ecosystems found at Blue Jay Barrens.

Other than some refreshing shade and a wealth of pine cones, the pine thicket hasn’t produced anything of remarkable interest.  Solid stands of young pines are notorious for having an almost desert like floor.  I’ll give it a few more decades to see what develops.

In an area dominated by brown and green, this rough orange growth encircling a pine branch was easy to notice.

This is a fungal disease know as Eastern Pine Gall Rust or Pine-Oak Gall Rust.  The infection starts small, but in a few years can form a raised collar as seen here.  The gall can remain active for up to ten years.  In the spring of the year, orange spores are produced that travel by the wind to infect oak trees.  Infected oak leaves produce hair-like galls on their undersides which release spores that infect pines.  This two host system means that spores released by the gall on the pine cannot infect another pine and spores from the oaks cannot infect other oaks.  Without pines and oaks in close proximity, the fungus cannot survive.

The pines are host to many types of interesting small animals.  Whatever hatches from this egg will probably be a consumer of pine needles.

This exit hole was left by some insect that spent its larval stage consuming the inside of a young pine cone.  With its seed cavity cleaned out, the cone died.

As with most plants at Blue Jay Barrens, Virginia Pine serves as host to numerous aphid colonies.  Where there are aphids, there will be Allegheny Mound Ants.  It is uncommon to find any aphid colonies here that are tended by other ant species.

I found these large aphids to be particularly interesting.  When disturbed, the mature aphids would break from the pack and run up the branch.  Most aphids have a top speed that would be described as a fast walk.  These aphids moved just as quickly as one of the scurrying ants.  I believe these aphids are of the genus Cinara, AKA Giant Conifer Aphids, but if I was charged with the task of assigning an appropriate common name, I think I would to call them the Running Aphid.

Cedar Maintenance in the Middle Field

The marking flags are once again flying in the field as I resume my cedar maintenance activities. 

I’m working in what I think of as the Middle Field.  The field seen through the trees is the Far Field, which runs up against the County road.  In the other direction is the Near Field, which sits beside the house.  Between those two fields is the Middle Field.  It makes sense as long as you don’t consider all of the fields that are in other directions from the house.

The Middle Field is a narrow, wedge shaped field that points to the north.  Even though it is only two acres in size, the Middle Field contains a variety of diverse habitats.  Along the east side is a shallow valley containing a small, intermittent stream.  A narrow strip of deep soil along the stream bank encourages tree growth.

Just a short climb up the slope brings you onto shallower soil where the prairie vegetation dominates.

The areas of open grassland reach as narrow fingers among the tall cedars.  In these areas I don’t need the help of flags to guide my search for little cedars

At the top of the slope is a small thicket of Virginia Pine.  It’s not hard to pick out the tree that was most likely the original colonist.  The rest of the stand probably originated from that single individual.

Just through the pines, the field opens up onto a level hill top.  As the old fence row is cleared, this part of the field will become more associated with the Near Field seen through the trees to the left.

A thriving stand of Dwarf Sumac is found on the hill top.  We’ve had nearly no snow so far this winter, so the Sumac fruits have not been touched by the birds.  The sumac fruits seem to be eaten only out of necessity.  It’s only during the harshest of winters that this fruit seems to disappear.

The pointy end of the Middle Field has already been mowed.  If weather permits, I’ll mow the rest of the field following the cedar maintenance activities.

I’ll be removing Eastern Red Cedar as well as Virginia Pine seedlings from this field. 

Virginia Pines produce an abundance of seeds.  Those seeds seem ready to germinate as soon as they hit the ground, so pine seedlings are especially abundant near the mature pines.  Fortunately, if cut off at ground level, the pines will not regrow.

Because the field was mowed just three years ago, the young cedars are not very tall.  I generally like to conduct cedar maintenance activities in a field prior to mowing.  Sometimes circumstances conspire to limit the amount of time available for field work and I must decide which would be the most beneficial activity to pursue.  Three years ago, I decided to limit the threat of cedar competition on the prairie plants by going ahead and mowing the field.

As a result of that earlier decision, I am now cutting cedars that have regrown from a cut stem.  These individuals form a dense top growth, but still have only a single stem needing cut.

The mower actually caused the stem of this cedar to split three years ago.  Live branches, safe beneath the cut, responded to the loss of the tree top by generating some rapid growth.  The loss of a dominant top stem allowed the side shoots to grow uncontrolled in an attempt to replace that dominant leader.  As long as there is the least bit of green growth left, a cut cedar will successfully regrow.

My activities don’t go unnoticed by the local residents hiding behind an old brush pile.  They usually don’t seem too interested in my cedar maintenance activities.  It’s the mowing that they really get excited about.  They can’t resist checking out the interesting odors generated by freshly cut vegetation.

Small Nook by the Road

Ice and snow storms have made it difficult to work on any large projects this winter, so I’ve been using the intermittent periods of decent weather to finish some small jobs that have been cluttering up my to do list.  This is one of those odd areas that I’ve been meaning to get to for the past couple of years.  Bluehearts, Buchnera americana, one of the rarer plants in this area, have developed an expanding population in the shallow soil that formed over shale bedrock at this site.  This is the only Blue Jay Barrens population of Bluehearts growing on low pH soil.

The work area was a tenth of an acre in size and required about an hour and a half to clear out the young Eastern Red Cedars and Virginia Pines that were invading.  I keep records of my management activities by identifying the work areas on an aerial photo and noting date, type of work, time spent and interesting observations.  This particular site sits between the township road on the right and a four acre field that I mowed back in November.  The green spot in the center of the work boundary is a mature Virginia Pine, the seed source for the little guys I cleared out.

While cedar seeds are typically spread by birds, pine seeds are more likely to be moved by wind.  Prevailing wind direction is predominately from the south-west.  Few pines are found on the south-west side of the tree.

On the other side of the tree, the down-wind side, pines far outnumber the cedars.

Virginia Pines are fast growing and can easily outperform the cedars.  They are also highly attractive to deer and suffer a lot of damage from the actions of territorial bucks.

The surrounding area is composed primarily of mixed oaks.  When I originally cleared the large cedars from this area 15 years ago, I thought of letting it all grow up in oaks.  The appearance of the Bluehearts a few years later caused me to change my mind in favor of the rarer plant.

This piece of ground was historically plowed and cropped.  The ground inclines steeply to the right at a point that marks an earlier field edge.  At some point, probably when the plow began bringing up the underlying shale, the farmer moved the field edge farther down the hill.  The mowed area seen in the left middle of the photo indicates the field as last cropped.

Weather conditions have been rough on the cedars.  Most of the small individuals have lost their green coloration and are brown enough to effectively hide in the long grass.

The completed job.

After the sun tracks farther north, these openings between the trees will be fully illuminated for most of the day.  The Bluehearts have been slowly making their way downhill and are just beginning to show up in the most recently cropped areas.

The township road can just be seen crossing the center of the photo.  An unexpected hazard for these plants is a vehicle failing to negotiate the 90 degree turn in the road and tearing down through the field.  Fortunately, the most likely place for someone to lose control runs them right into a large tree.  The tree bears many scars, old and new, and has a collection of headlight glass at its base.  So far, the only person to miss the tree failed to break through my fence.  The fence was a mess, but the field suffered no damage.  The mishaps have yet to inflict any damage to the vehicle passengers.

The most labor intensive part of the job was carrying all of the cut material 250 feet across the adjoining field to the brush pile.  With each trip to the brush pile, I thought about how nice the weather was and how relaxing it was to be out working.  With each trip back, I thought about the winter storm predicted for Sunday and Monday and the arctic air moving in for the rest of the week.  I wonder how long it’ll be before I have another day like this.

The old brush pile had almost rotted down to nothing.  An infusion of new cuttings is evidence that I’m still around and working.

The Pine

I’ve been walking past this little pine for several years without paying it any special attention. I wondered why it wasn’t growing over in the low pH soils with the other Virginia Pines, but dismissed it as just being another oddity of Blue Jay Barrens. It put on a tremendous amount of growth this year, so I stopped to give it a closer look.

The trunk at the base of the tree is out of proportion with the upper growth. There are signs that growth has been a struggle. The central trunk shown here was once a side branch that took over the leadership position when the original lead shoot died or was eaten. The trunk supports several short side branches that would take over as the central leader if the top was once again lost.

I found several frass filled webs scattered about the tree. The webs were all quite small, but were tightly packed with caterpillar droppings, so I’m assuming that it was some type of communal nest. It was odd that there was very little evidence of any missing needles.

The tree must have suffered a lot of damage during its lifetime. Odd growths, weird branch angles and other deformities are everywhere you look. Sometime in the past, the top was removed at this point and two branches are battling to become the one true leader. A vertical crack at the joining point of the two branches will be a perfect place for the tree to split under a heavy snow load. This tree doesn’t seem to have much of a chance of getting very tall.

While I was photographing, the fact jumped out at me that this pine had three needles to a bundle , instead of the two that are a trait of Virginia Pine. Not being a Virginia Pine may explain why it’s not growing with the Virginia Pines. Three slightly twisted needles in a bundle points to Pitch Pine, Pinus rigida. If this truly is Pitch Pine, then I have another species to add to my list. These healthy looking buds suggest that I’ll have plenty of time to study this tree and decide for sure on the ID.

Now I’ll have to pay closer attention to this guy so I can be sure of its designation. I’ll also have to make a check in the pine field to see if there are any pines over there that aren’t Virginia Pine. I love these kinds of surprises.

Far East Field

This is a good time of year to visit areas to assess management success and future needs. I’m in year one of my five year management plan renewal, so I’m identifying activities that should be accomplished within the next few years, as well as those things that urgently need to be completed during the coming winter. This field is roughly four acres in size. It was last cropped around 1976 and was being used for hay when we bought the property. Bedrock is shale and the pH is low throughout the entire soil profile. It has an amazing amount of diversity for such a small field. Wet conditions at the low side of the field transition to super dry conditions as you travel up the slope toward the high ground.

Encroaching woody growth was cut out of this field two years ago. This Tuliptree probably got missed when I was marking the cut trees for herbicide treatment. Multiple sprouts have created a thick bush in place of the single trunked tree. This definitely needs to be cut this winter.

The majority of trees in the field are ones that I have purposely left in place. These are White Flowering Dogwoods. Disease eliminated the dogwoods from their rightful place in the woodland understory. In order to keep White Flowering Dogwoods on the property, I’ve allowed them to stay in the fields. They’re spaced far enough apart that they don’t hinder growth of the prairie species.

The township road boarders the long side of the field and makes this a likely place to discover non-native invasive species. I found just a few Johnson Grass plants near the fence. These must have been too small for me to notice when I did my normal Johnson Grass search earlier in the year. Since they would have been difficult to spray without killing everything around them, I just pulled them up. I’ll check this spot more closely next year to see if I can catch the plants when they’re smaller.

From the looks of the roots, these are probably young plants that came up from seed this year. That’s why they weren’t noticeable earlier. Johnson Grass spreads by way of rhizomes, so it’s hard to control the plant by pulling. Any bit of rhizome left in the soil produces a new plant. Most of the plants I pulled had not yet begun to form rhizomes and showed no signs of having arisen from an established rhizome. The plant second from the left shows some rhizome development and had a break showing that it had left something beneath the surface. Pulling may not have eliminated the infestation, but it certainly thinned it out. If you can’t kill an invasive plant outright, the next best thing to do is cause it severe stress.

The Dwarf Sumacs are bowed under the weight of some tremendously successful seed heads. One more growing season and they’ll reach the stage where they must be cut back to the ground.

There are three large Virginia Pines in this field. Their shade does suppress some prairie growth around the base of the trunk, but they add a bit of diversity that is worth the loss of a few sun loving plants. They’re really turning into some lovely trees.

Several of the Butterflyweeds are blooming here. Unfortunately, there are virtually no swallowtails or other large butterflies to take advantage of the flowers. This has been a dismal year for large butterflies.

This caterpillar is evidence that a Monarch butterfly did come by. I’ve seen scattered Monarchs, but I think they all moved north as quickly as possible. The reports from farther north indicate an abundance of Monarchs up there. I’m looking forward to a very impressive southern migration this fall.

Wild Senna is scattered across the field. All were developing an impressive set of seed pods. It’s amazing how quickly this plant has spread during the past few years.

The bulk of the field is open and developing into a fine prairie. There are a few woody plants that need to be removed and a minor need for some invasive plant control, but there are no big problems to deal with. In a few years, this field should need nothing more than occasional maintenance.