 Well, we're on another adventure. Every time I get in a vehicle with Joey, it's an adventure. Today's adventure takes us to the Troy Elementary School in Troy, Maine. My daughter, who teaches here, she teaches gardening and agriculture and that sort of thing, has found a huge maple tree that she thinks might be a state record tree. And she found it when they were out with the kids tapping for maple sap. So today, she invited us, I kinda invited myself, to come up and watch. Two foresters come and how they measure up a tree to be a state record. I'm gonna learn something, never seen it done. The kids will learn something. So right now we're just at the Troy School waiting for the state crew to show up. What a cool project, the school. Yeah, it's a great thing. You know, it's a great thing that they get out and look at the different trees and identify the different trees. That's gonna mean a lot, you know, later in life and know a little bit about what goes on in the outside world. It's just about the toughest time to identify a tree right now. And Maine, jeez, I gotta believe we have about seven, eight, nine different maple trees. And I think what we're after today from what we heard is a maple tree. Donnie and I are both super interested in trees in general and the forest and woods and the history of the logging in Maine. And we're always excited to see a big tree anyway. As a matter of fact, there's about four or five trees that I wanna recommend to these foresters to also get on that list of big trees. But since about, I think 1940, they started a national registry of big trees across the whole nation. And Maine was quick to adopt a state registry of big trees too. So there's a state record list of trees in Maine. There's trees we've never even heard of. And what they do is they measure, I guess the circumference at breast level. So that's DBH or a W diameter, CBH, circumference at breast height. And then they measure the height, which we're really interested to see how they do that. Yeah, there's a formula like that you measure a distance away and there's a way you can hold your thumb up. We'll get more into that later. And then they also have to measure the crown too at the widest point too. So imagine they do that by looking straight up and then maybe putting something in the ground around it. I got no clue, you know. I've never seen it done. Yeah, it's educational for you probably and it's educational for us. So we're super excited. Here's the foresters pulling in right now. And we're excited to see this and share it with you. And maybe a new state record, some sort of maple tree. We don't even know. We don't know the variety if it's a red maple or rock maple. We hope to think and identify it for us. We haven't seen it yet either. Super excited to find out how this is all done. I'm Darcy. Nice to meet you. This is our sap and you must be Alyssa. Hi. Hi, thank you so much for coming. I'm sure. We're really excited. Okay. Hi. Oh my God, these kids are so lucky. If I would get anything to go back to 4th grade. That is, I know what that is. What is it? Cherry fruit. Is it? You sure? It's the word yet. Cherry fruit. It actually has blackknot too. So there's a fungus that the children describe it as looking like dog droppings. Oh. All the time, people asking about it. It's actually a fungus that's common with things in the Lusaceae family. So, cherry. Yeah. They're known for growing on field edges. Yep. And, you know, they've got the droops that birds like, not super palatable for humans, but. Good wild-eyed cherries. Is that our only wild cherry tree in Maine or are there more? There's actually pin cherry and choke cherry. Okay. There's also some like hybridized species from landscaping. Sure. Cherry trees and things. Not sure if any of those are invasive, but I've seen some kind of odd cherry trees in people's wood lines. Oh, there you go. We've got a great campus here. I thought this is the big old. You're right. Yeah. So, as you said before, Alyssa and I are foresters. We're actually both district foresters. We work with Maine Forest Service. What our job entails is we help people come up with good ideas for being stewards of their woodlots, their forests. Help them figure out what they want to do with them and what's best for the woods. We also do educational events like this, and we help make sure that people are following all the laws when they do have harvests in their woods. So we wanted to go over a few of the tools that we're going to be using today to measure this tree to see if it qualifies as a champion. The next tool I want to share with you guys is this book here. It's called The Forest Trees of Maine. This gives you a lot of identification features of different trees. As we said, you guys, we're pretty sure this is a red maple. So now we want to look to this tool to see, well, how do we know for sure it's a red maple? So I've got pre-saved here, the page that has all the maples on it, and this gives us a helpful guide. It's different facts about the different types of maples so you can compare them to one another. Offhand, the dead giveaway for me is the buds at the tips of the branches. If you look up, you can see there's clusters of them. They're very rounded and they're kind of a deep maroon red. That is a very classic red maple look to it. So another feature, one of the ways that we can differentiate, say a maple tree from an oak tree is looking at what's called branch arrangement. So our oak trees are going to be alternate, which means that the branches are staggered along the stem. Our maple trees are going to be opposite of one another. So we have a branch, it looks like maybe one down here. So we can see a little bit better. If you can see, the twigs are directly across from one another on the branch. We call that opposite branch arrangement. Kind of like if you spread out your arms, they would be exactly the same. You guys see the examples of that? Looking up in the tree, where the twigs are right across from one another. And then the bright red buds that Jared was talking about, here we go. So that's two signs that we have a maple here. What else do we have in our identifying teaching? So this book is broken down into the different groups of trees. So our Acer Aciae are maples. This section here, we'll have red, sugar, silver. What else do we got here? Striped, mountain, and Norway maple, which is an invasive one. But red maple, we don't have any leaves to look off of, but in the fall, the leaves turn red. Yeah, you have a question? A lot. So isn't that book basically... Yup, the paper is made out of a tree. That's one of our timber products there, is paper. We have another question? Oh, I actually have that book. You have this book? This is a great book. If you have one at home, you can practice tree ID at home too, or bring it here to school to practice. So we do have a picture of our red maple leaf. I want you guys to look at, and this is a helpful tip with tree identification, just because the leaves aren't on the tree, doesn't mean they're not still around. A lot of times you can find them on the ground nearby the tree. It's more helpful with certain species and others, because things like aspen, the leaves are so thin and papery, they'll just kind of wither up into nothing, they can be hard to find good ones sometimes. But you can also get leaves from nearby trees, so just be careful you don't get confused as to which is which. Real quick, you guys see this here? This is our red maple. See if you can find a red maple leaf on the ground. What you're looking for is the part that recesses, the part that goes down here, we call that the sinus. It comes to a point. If you find one that comes to a U, you've probably got a sugar maple. So we're looking for one that has a sharp B there. Yeah, you got one. All right. I think I just found one. There you go. You found one? Looks great, yeah. Good job. You got one, it's crimpy. You got it, yeah. Oh, you found a big one. Good job. See, you guys are experts already. Good job. Do you guys want this? We can put it back down on the ground and let it turn back into soil. We will give it back to you. The first one I picked up had a rolling pulley on it. We will give it back to the bug. Yeah, we used to call them sow bugs in Illinois. They've got lots of weird names. All right, do we want to talk about any more identifying features here? We haven't talked about bark yet. We see the bark on this one's very shaggy. When the trees are younger, the bark is smooth, light grayish. As it gets older, it gets these shaggy barks. And you'll see it starts to peel away like it does down there at the bottom that can offer all kinds of different wildlife habitat. So not only is it great for food for us making maple syrup, but it also provides really vital habitat for a lot of our species here in Maine. Moving on to our tools now because we want to measure this tree. So the name of the tree is first forever. Yeah, if the bark gets a little shaggier than it currently is, you might start seeing, I think it's the, is it the brown, brown ear bats? I'm not sure which bats. They start living under the bark. Sometimes, sometimes. That habitat. But then this tree's not too far from having shaggy, peely enough bark for that to start happening. Wow, that would be really interesting. This is a special measuring tape that foresters use. Jared has a longer tape there. This is my little diameter tape. We call it diameter tape or D tape for short. Foresters have abbreviations for everything. This takes into account pie. So when we're measuring the circumference, we don't have to do math in the woods. Foresters don't like to do math in the woods. So I have a tool that does it for me. So we'll be able to use this and come up with our circumference to write on our paper. So we have this little D tape or logger's tape. That's our second tool. We talked about the tree ID book there first. And then next we have this really handy dandy clinometer. Has anyone ever seen a clinometer before? Maybe not a few of you. If you've ever done envirothon, we've used them there. Our clinometer is what we use to measure the height of a tree. So we're actually going to measure 100 feet back. And then we will use this tool. I'll give you guys a chance, a couple of you, to look through it. But we'll come up with a height measurement that we all agree on. And we'll do that here. There we go. Our next is to measure canopy spread, which can be... Well, we gotta measure 100 feet with this too. Yes, we will measure the 100 feet with this. But the next measurement is canopy spread. So the canopy spread is from one side of our canopy to the other, and we're gonna do that in two directions. So we're gonna come this way, and then we're gonna go that way. That's usually good to do with two people. We're gonna go to the very edge of where we would imagine the leafs to be, so the very ends of those twigs. So we've got a few measurements to do, and then we have these worksheets. So on the front of your page, it'll tell you exactly how to take the measurement. So it shows here location, date, your name, photograph, and date is really super helpful. But then we're also going to use, it says on here a hypsometer, we're using the conometer instead. But we will take the diameter with the D tape or circumference. We will take a vertical height there with the conometer, and then we will use the measuring tape for the spread. And there is a little math formula at the bottom of the sheet here. So circumference is inches plus height and feet plus one fourth of the crown spread. And that will give us our total point for our big tree measurement. And then we'll compare that to the big tree list to see if this is going to be the big difference. And if we don't have time to do the comparison today, you guys can do that in class, so it'll be a fun comparison. Well, I could not next week because we're boiling sap next week, but we could do it the week after. Oh, fun! We need somebody with water to do it. I don't just like my water to do it. So the scoring system for like, is it a point system? Yeah, they do a point system and I'm not exactly sure what went into that system and why, but you'll see, I'll give you one of these. Sure. Oh my God, you just made Donnie's day. That's Mr. Johnson, Donnie's. Yeah. So right now we're measuring the crown. Ashley, your hand's got one. Oh, okay. Oh, okay, sorry. Oh, because we have to go 100 feet out. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. So 100 feet. Cool. Wow, look how far away they are. Oh, sorry, where were you? I don't have a D-tape, so it's in circumference, so we're just going to use the other side of my D-tape. Okay. It's just like a regular measuring tape. Gotcha. So this is a red maple, so 126, 75, and 60. Huge one. Yeah. So 10 foot around. Over 10 foot is the biggest so far. Oh, wow, look at this. In Howlin. Oh, yeah, he's using the tool. Yeah, percent says the left side. Yeah, that will be... Well, I see the percent mark. There you go. Numbers on both sides. On one side, it's going to be the percent, so we're measuring 100 feet back and we're going to use the percent size. A lot of times, foresters, when we're measuring things, we use a chain of 66 feet. The other side is based on that measurement, so we're not going to worry about that today. We're going to look at the percent. So the way this works, you guys won't learn this for a few more grades yet, but it's using the angle to the base and the angle to the top, which is the exact that I am exactly 100 feet away from the tree. It uses a math called trigonometry, which you guys, I think, will be learning in a few more years yet, but to calculate how tall the tree is based on those known factors. So I am getting... What was it? 84 feet tall, I believe. Okay, so we should be writing this down? You're right there. So when I'm using a clinometer, I look down at the base of the tree and I get a number. Okay, so then we are going to take those numbers together. You're getting 90? I am, I'm getting like 90, 91. Okay, so yeah, because we were plus six and 90, math, math, math, yeah. So 84 feet tall is how tall that tree is based on our measurement right here. Okay, so that's cool. Awesome, that's pretty awesome. We don't have to like climb it with a ruler. Yeah, yeah. I was not going to do that. I won. That's the old days. So if you're ever wondering, when am I ever going to use math in my life? This is one of the ways. I am not here before we take the diameter, which we may have to use Gerrits, because I think it might be too big for my little mini-linker. We did like a rough estimate and I didn't have professional... I was using a tape measure that we kind of bent around the tree. Well, a tape measure will work just fine, so the diameter is what we use if we're getting diameter since we're doing it with circumference. We're going to use the other side. So you'll see one side that says diameter to inches and the other side is just like a basic measuring tape. So we'll use that size. We may actually need to use my big one. Yeah, we're probably going to have to use the big vlogger's tape. I don't know if that's small or not. Yeah, it was 10 foot one inch circumference when we measured it. Yeah, this isn't going to be long enough. You know, that was just a rough estimate. All right, so let's head back over Is there still like the old way where you actually hold your thumb at like chest level or something? So we do that for determining if a tree's in. You can do the thumb or like the penny method. There's a roller method that we can do for measuring trees that is basic trig. I usually do that for junior high school. Okay. With fourth and fifth grade it's kind of like on the line. So if you don't have a chronometer at home there is a way you can still... it's holding away. It's a really fun activity for the older kids too. We've done that for I guess in biathlon practice and for different junior high school and high school groups. And then the day or the circumference is pretty easy. Everybody has like a measuring tape that they can use or they can measure with a string and then take it back in the classroom and use a yard sticker. So that works too. Sweet. This is great. It makes a difference in the pocket. I'm so excited. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, this is great. I'm sorry. Just memorize what part of me is one half feet off the ground. That's cool. Cool. So I need somebody... Oh, I have four feet. If you will just bring this and hold it right against the tree right around here. Yep. Just hold it still. Excuse me. It's relatively still there. I'll get around and not... I'm glad you wore your boots. Get caught in... Oh, darn. Uh-oh. So we're just going to have to... I mean, frankly, I don't think it's going to... What is that tree? I think that's... A brown ash? Yeah. Well, I don't think it's brown. Or black. Or you think it's white? Probably. Oh, neat. Brown ash is fairly rare and usually has more corky, punky bark. Yeah, I always call it brown, but I think it's officially what I'd slap. They're both common names, so it doesn't really matter. A little bit of high here. A little lower? Yep, you're doing great. And out of habit, I have it on diameter side. So if you notice, these right here, these are not one-inch increments. It's 37 and 38, but that's like actually 3.14 inches exactly, because what I'm measuring right now is the diameter of this tree, which is 39 and a half inches diameter, because the tape is automatically converting. Can you hold that again just a second? But if I flip it over to the other side, this is just regular inches. So I am getting 10 feet, seven and a half inches. Oh, that's bigger. We measured it. So we were in the ballpark. That's good. That is a bigger tree. It's nice. It's metal too. 10.7 and a half. 10.7 and a half. So write that down if you have a flip board. They make it out of metal to make sure that it doesn't stretch if you pull on it. Well, actually, let me correct myself. It is not 10 feet, seven and a half inches. It is 10.75 feet. Oh, 10.75 feet. Yeah, so you have to convert that into inches because it's actually 10ths of a foot on this. Would that be nine inches? Yeah. Well actually, who's good at math? I'm kind of good at math. Yeah, we can definitely do that. What is three quarters of 12 inches? Three quarters of 12 inches is four. No, wait, no. Three quarters of four of that would be eight. Close. No, done to nine. Got it. So 10 feet, nine inches. Nice. I didn't pick up on those. You guys may have to do the math in the classroom. Yeah, we'll have to do the math in the classroom because we've got about nine minutes to be out here and that will give us five minutes to get back in. Awesome. Hey guys, so now we're measuring what the crown of the bell is. We're measuring the canopy spread and we're going to take two measurements. So what is our number? Eight here. You're probably going to have to go in the woods for this side. I'm sorry, buddy. Here, you kind of feel it. So it's on right now. You can't see. If you want to see, you can tap. Probably whoever's talking. I didn't even know, but you can hold this. Okay, so Jared has a helper over there. Somebody wants to go in the woods and help Jared find the farthest point. All right, go help him find it. Okay, Abby's doing it. You want to be... Jared. We have someone who can run the tape here for you. Yeah, you can come along with me. You can help him. The tree doesn't get tangled and dappling. There we go. Got some good helper stuff. There's some tangley in here. Sorry. All right. That's how the word is. All right. Where do I point it? Well, no one's talking. Let's go over by Mrs. Forester. She seems to be the one in charge, so what kind of point is it at her? Oh, boy, they're really pushed back into there. He's working hard. Oh, what kind of bird was that? A woodcock? Did you guys see them just close that woodcock? What's that? Is it a battery? Yeah, just a battery. Do you know another name for a woodcock? It's a timber doodle. I did not know that. That's a funny name. Yeah, I kind of wonder how it got the timber doodle. Yeah, that's a funny one. I think when it walks, it does like three forward, two back. It does a really funny one. I'm putting it at the person who's talking at them. 84. 84. What is it? 85? Jackson, can I hold the camera? The second measurement was 85. Are you holding your camera? 69.75. 69.75. 65.7. No, 69.7. 75. 75. Okay, done. I have 140. I have 140. I have 140. I have 140. Okay, awesome. What do you think of this gun? I think it's great, isn't it? Did you do this stuff in fourth grade? No way. They just flushed a woodcock, so they could play even more out of it. Yeah, that's great. So even if this tree, after you do the math in the classroom, so we have that word for the crown spread. So you're going to do that formula? Yeah. Even if you're not the biggest journalist, let us know because when you do have a tree die, we like to have a runner up. Oh, okay. And then we go to that one to be the big tree. Okay, cool. Well, it'll be interesting to just see how we compare. And you know, it would be really cool for you guys to take measurements of the tree, you know, every year, every couple of years, see how much it's growing, see how much the diameter it's gained, how much height, if the crown spread is getting bigger or smaller. Yeah, that's a great idea. Awesome. Well, thank you. We have a tree we want you guys to look at in Jefferson. Oh, awesome. That's exciting. So the crown is how far the branches spread from one to the other. We did write down the numbers for it. It's a cross from the town office. Do you know where the town office is next to the school? Yeah. Straight across the street on somebody's front lawn like 10 feet off the road, have you seen that tree? That is a black cottonwood. What is that doing in Maine? Yeah, that one was probably planted. That is a huge tree. We don't have that many of them. They're in the same family as our poppals, populous. So if you measured it, that one in Jefferson? I haven't measured it yet. If the homeowner is okay with us measuring it, if you guys could have them contact us, we can absolutely measure it. I'm not sure even who the homeowner is now. They used to be Drexels. Yeah, DJI. So when you do a core sample, you're counting these rings in the tree? You have an increment bore and you want to hit the piss, you want to hit the hardwood, and then you count the rings coming out. I was hoping that we could do it today, not on a hardwood tree, we usually do softwoods. But if you want to do that in the future, let me know I should have one soon. Great. The kids, after they were really interested in measuring this tree, we were exploring in the backwoods here too and found a really large pine and quite a large birch. We don't know what kind of pine it is, so we couldn't compare it to what was on the big tree registry, but we measured that one and we measured the birch and it was all really their idea, which was great. I know, I really have spurred a lot of interest in that kind of thing, so we really appreciate you coming to teach us about measuring the big trees and how to identify them, and yeah, that's really exciting so far. Circumference, I figured it, I mean, I multiplied that by 12, right? Because that's in v. It has to be an inches. Yeah. I think we might have the biggest record. Whoa, that would be awesome. That would be so great. Red Mate Bull, the old record, 216, in Howland. They're going to be pretty upset in Howland. Yeah, we just sat down and, you know, we had all the measurements, the circumference, the height and the spread of the tree and using the formula that the forestry puts out, we did all those and followed the formula and we came up with 230.44 as the points and according to our big tree of main sheet, April before was 216. So we're feeding it by 14 points. Wow. Which is awesome. New state record. Yeah, that's great. The kids really loved it. The kids, that's the coolest part. So thanks a lot guys for tuning in. As you could see, I don't know if you could tell the kids from the adults in this video. We were... I was more excited than the kids. Way more excited than the kids or as excited. It was so cool and it was cool meeting those foresters and just learning a lot. They've invested a ton in their own education and they have a lot of knowledge that they've accrued over the years so for them to share it with us was really special for us. So thanks again for tuning in guys. We'll see you on the next one. If you liked this video, I'm actually thinking about starting a series called Tree Hunters That would really be cool. We could either go down that list and just go see the ones already measured or we could go find new ones. Right. Oh yeah. If there's an interest in people viewing that If people like this stuff. It would interest me. Because I know of like four others that definitely need to be measured. There's one in Whitefield. There's one in Jefferson. There's a black cottonwood in Jefferson that is massive. There's an Elm up in the North Main Woods that could make the list. And then there's a white pine up there that I wouldn't ever stick my nose up to. Oh wow. It's a beast. Is it a king's pine? No, that one's not a king's. I don't know if we have any kings left. Yeah. Somebody showed me a stuff one once of a king's pine when I was a kid but I don't even know if that the years go by. Probably a king's pine wouldn't have that. No. They'd be straight and not a huge canopy. I think it would have to be too old I think now to have a king's pine in existence. Because that would have been pre-1700s. You're talking like I guess 15-1600s. Yeah probably 16s. And if it was a king's pine then it was already 300 years old towards the end of its life. So yeah I don't think So if you guys like that leave it in the comment. We might have just started a new series, a new channel called Tree Hunters. Donny and I will be the tree hunters. He's been known to shoot a few trees while he was out deer hunting. I've shot a lot of them. There's more lead in those trees than there are in any deer I ever shot. Alright guys over and out.