Those are the three major trees of the New York State canopy. The American Beech seems more delicate than the others, but, that is why there are forest rangers and silviculturists to be sure the forest is healthy year after year.

Next to discuss will be the understory, which may include the saplings of these three magnificent trees.

June 24, 2019
By Jason Subik

Video drone footage (click here) on the recently launched exit29project.com website provides a sweeping aerial view of what remains of the sprawling 29-acre former Beech-Nut baby food plant.

The three minute video, which includes an uplifting instrumental soundtrack, shows the old factory's proximity to the Mohawk River, Route 5 and the New York State Thruway.

The website is a joint-venture between Montgomery County and the Montgomery County Industrial Development Agency, which split the approximately $30,000 cost of hiring Amsterdam-based Engines of Creation to design and maintain the site.

Exit29project.com lists the many attributes of the property, as well as providing a summary of its history and the federal, state and local resources being put into redeveloping the location.... 

July 12, 2019
By Jessie Higgins

Evansville - Governments, (click here) universities and private businesses around the world are racing to develop a vaccine for African swine fever before the disease spreads around the world.

The virus, deadly to pigs, but harmless to humans, is spreading relentlessly across Asia. Half of China's pig herd might soon be gone, according to some estimates, and that's roughly a quarter of the world's pigs.

The disease also has infected pigs in Vietnam, Mongolia, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos and Bulgaria. Because of its potential to destroy a nation's pig industry, non-infected countries, including those in Europe and North America, are throwing up as many defenses as possible to keep it out.

But with no vaccine, there is only so much they can do....

July 13, 2019

QYReports (click here) has added insightful analytical data to its massive repository titled, Avian Influenza Vaccines market. The report highlights leading key players operating in the global regions such as North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and India. Different graphical presentation techniques such as charts, graphs, table, and pictures have been used while curating the report.

Avian influenza can be defined as the disease caused by infection by the bird flu Type-A virus. These viruses are found commonly in aquatic birds and they can cause infection in domestic poultry and other species of birds. Based on the protein present on the virus surface, the influenza Type-A virus can be sub-classified into neuraminidase (NA) and hemagglutinin (HA)....

...Furthermore, it sheds light on key business priorities in order to assist the companies. The global Avian Influenza Vaccines market report is summarized with the help of different case studies from leading industries, policymakers, business owners, and industry experts. Growth predictions for numerous segments such as Avian Influenza Vaccines have also been included in the report....

The fruit of the American Beech is the beechnut. It  has a short stalk, light brown and prickly burs. The exterior casing splits into four parts exposing the nut inside in the autumn.

The nut is about 5/8 inch long, triangle-shaped and shiny brown. They are an excellent food for many forest animals.

Water mold that will attack a damaged bark of the American Beech

Several species of Phytophthora (click here) cause Phytophthora bleeding canker in the northeast, such as: P. cactorum, P. cambivora, P. gonapodyides, P. pini and P. plurivora.

The most common host of Phytophthora bleeding canker is European beech (Fagus sylvatica). Additional hosts in the region include: maple (Acer), American beech (F. grandifolia), birch (Betula), magnolia (Magnolia), dogwood (Cornus), oak (Quercus), horsechestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) and walnut (Juglans).

Phytophthora bleeding canker kills the bark and outer sapwood tissues of trees and shrubs. The most prominent symptom of the disease is dark-colored sap oozing from bark cankers. The fluid is typically reddish-brown and it stains the surrounding bark as it flows downward. Infected bark is often water soaked and stained while the inner sapwood can exhibit a range of abnormal colors (brown, bluish-green, orange and pink) depending on the particular species of Phytophthora present. The cankers typically have a well-defined margin that is clearly associated with the bleeding of sap observed from the trunk or scaffold branch. Phytophthora species do not decay wood; they consume sugars in the cambium and outer sapwood. However, the resulting death of the bark and outer sapwood can provide an infection site for wood-rotting fungi to invade at a later time. Research has shown that once Phytophthora invades the outer sapwood, the pathogen can be drawn upwards in the vascular tissue to create cankers higher on the trunk or on main scaffold branches....

Glob Chang Biol. 2015 Mar;21(3):1005-17.

Alteration of the phenology of leaf senescence and fall in winter deciduous species by climate change: effects on nutrient proficiency.

Estiarte M, Peñuelas J

Abstract (click here)

Leaf senescence in winter deciduous species signals the transition from the active to the dormant stage. The purpose of leaf senescence is the recovery of nutrients before the leaves fall. Photoperiod and temperature are the main cues controlling leaf senescence in winter deciduous species, with water stress imposing an additional influence. Photoperiod exerts a strict control on leaf senescence at latitudes where winters are severe and temperature gains importance in the regulation as winters become less severe. On average, climatic warming will delay and drought will advance leaf senescence, but at varying degrees depending on the species. Warming and drought thus have opposite effects on the phenology of leaf senescence, and the impact of climate change will therefore depend on the relative importance of each factor in specific regions. Warming is not expected to have a strong impact on nutrient proficiency although a slower speed of leaf senescence induced by warming could facilitate a more efficient nutrient resorption. Nutrient resorption is less efficient when the leaves senesce prematurely as a consequence of water stress. The overall effects of climate change on nutrient resorption will depend on the contrasting effects of warming and drought. Changes in nutrient resorption and proficiency will impact production in the following year, at least in early spring, because the construction of new foliage relies almost exclusively on nutrients resorbed from foliage during the preceding leaf fall. Changes in the phenology of leaf senescence will thus impact carbon uptake, but also ecosystem nutrient cycling, especially if the changes are consequence of water stress.

The American Beech flowers in the spring with new leaves. It makes sense, the new leaves begin the nourishment of the tree after a dormant winter.

The male flowers are small and yellowish crowded in a ball 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter hanging on a long hairy stalk about 2 inches in length.

The female flowers are 1/4 inch long bordered by narrow, hairy, reddish scales. There are two at the end of a short stalk. 

Deadly monsoon floods and landslides hit Nepal (click here for news article - thank you)

American Beech's species name is  Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.

The leaf of the American Beech is 2-1/2 to 5 inches long and 1 to 3 inches wide. The shape is elliptical or ovate. The word ovate is most often used by botanists or forest experts.

There is a long point at the tip, there is a main vein with many straight parrallel slightly sunken side veins. 

The leaves have a saw-toothed edge with a short stalk off the twig. It is dark blue-green above and light green beneath. It is nearly hairless of completely hairless. Turn yellow and brown in the autumn/fall.

Storm Barry batters parts of Louisiana

The color of the American Beech trunk is very distinctive. The top picture is an aged picture and the bottom picture are younger trees.

The bark is light grey, smooth and thin. They succumb easier to fire than the other trees they share the forest. The bark can be injured by winter frost and damaged bark allows a sap-rotting fungus.

What is truly interesting about the Beech is that it's saplings do best when under the shade of a Sugar Maple and vice versa. So the dominant tree in this forest may fluctuate between the two species. The phenomena is called frequency-dependent selection (click here). Here again, this is about genetics.

Moist rich soils along uplands and well drained lowlands.

The American Beech was one of the first trees recognized by the early colonists due to their familiarity with the European Beech tree.

The nuts of the American Beech are favorites to wildlife, especially squirrels, raccoons, game birds, bears, and other mammals.

14th July 2019
By Hillary Whiteman

By 2025, (click here) New York's Staten Island will be fortified by a towering seawall running 5.3 miles along the coast, an engineering feat designed to ward off a growing threat.

The climate crisis is predicted to create more powerful and extreme weather systems all over the world, and coastal engineers are racing to respond with structures to reduce their impact.

The first seawalls were built centuries ago, though there are now, arguably, greater assets to protect and more people living along vulnerable coastlines than ever before.

A recent report by the Center for Climate Integrity estimated it could cost the US more than $400 billion over the next 20 years to protect coastal communities....

Both of the pictures are of the American Beech tree which is the third most abundant tree in the Northern Hardwood Forest. 

The top picture is a tree of about 10 to 15 years old and the bottom pictures is of an aged American Beech.

The tree has a very full crown with many branches. This makes for a full canopy and wonderful shade.

They live as long as 300 years. During Fall, the Beech's leaves are a bright golden color. The Beech also produces edible nuts. The American beech tree is a shade tree native to the eastern United States with strikingly silver-gray bark. It is the only beech tree that is native to North America. The most robust specimens can grow to a height of 115 feet. It produces four-lobed beech nuts which draw birds and animals that forage for them in the tree branches and on the soil surface. The American Beech reproduces by the spread of its seedlings and through sprouts in its roots. Because of the root propagation stands of American Beech often grow close to one another. Its roots grow to quite a thickness above ground, and many people consider them to have a resemblance to the human leg and arm muscles. The largest specimens of the American Beech grow in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys near the rivers of both valleys. American beeches there can live for as long as 400 years.

It is Sunday Night

The Tree Song (Ken Medema) sung by Wm. Dunbar P.S. Chorale

"The Tree Song" by Ken Medema (click here for official website - thank you)

I saw a tree by the riverside one day as I walked along, straight as an arrow, and pointing to the sky, growing tall and strong. How do you grow so tall and strong?" I said to the riverside tree. This is the song my tree friend sang to me. I have roots growing down to the water. I have leaves reaching up to the sunshine. And, the fruit that I bear is the sign of the life in me. I am shade from the hot summer sundown. I am nests for the birds of the heaven. I'm becoming what the maker of trees has meant me to be: a strong, young, tree. I saw a tree in the wintertime, when show lay on the ground. Straight as an arrow and pointing to the sky and the winter winds blew all around. " How do you grow so straight and tall?" I said to my wintertime tree. This is the song that my tree friend sang to me: I've got roots growing down to the water. I've got leaves growing up to the sunshine. And, the fruit that I bear is a sign of the life in me. I am shade from the hot summer sundown. I am nests for the birds of the heavens. I'm becoming what the maker of trees has meant me to be: a strong young tree.". I saw a tree in the city streets where buildings blocked the sun. Green and lovely, I could see it gave joy to everyone. How do you grow in the city streets?" I said to my downtown tree. This is the song that my tree friend sang to me: I've got roots growing down to the water. I've got leaves growing up to the sunshine. And, the fruit that I bear is a sign of the life in me. I am shade from the hot summer sundown. I am nests for the birds of the heavens. I'm becoming what The Maker of Trees has meant me to be: a strong, young, tree."