Wednesday, July 28, 2010

age of conifers

Anonymus does not believe the age estimates I am giving of some American conifers. Here are just three of many samples which all tell the same story:
Big one - Ponderosa pine 237 rings
small light one Ponderosa pine 232 rings
small dark one Rocky Mountain Juniper 229 rings
Hundreds of cutting show the same pattern: On pines one inch of radius is about 200 years. On junipers one inch is about 300 years and more.
I have a Ponderosa pine with a radius of ten inches. It's your guess how old that is. According to my cuttings it must be 500 to almost 2000 years. Margin of error is 1000 years.
I own a Rocky Mountain Juniper with a radius of 6 inches. So this must be between 1000 and almost 2000 years old. Margin of error one thousand years. These are not exceptions. This is NORMAL. It is just not common knowledge.