SALCA Field Trip. Final Day

Thursday 7th July was the last full day of experiments planned in Delamere. In order to get our SALCA scan list up to date, we opted for 1 more Coniferous stand and a larch stand. Alberto and Vishal joined us once again to help conduct field measurements.

Plot 5: Larch stand

As well as the manual field measurements mentioned in previous posts, we also take an opportunity to collect GPS positions of each plot using new Trimble devices acquired by the University of Salford.

Alberto and Vishal conducting field measurements at plot 11

The picture below shows an example of a tree infected with Red Band Needle Blight. We were informed by the Forestry Commission that this disease mainly affects Corsican Pines, although the cause is not yet known. For this reason, our final plot was by  a cross roads between two pine stands, one of which was more affected by the blight. We are hoping that differences in spectral properties may be picked up in SALCA, which could be useful in monitoring change over time of the disease in particularly badly affected areas.

Red Pine Needle Blight mainly affecting Corsican Pine

Alberto, Vishal, Oliver and Richard by plot 16

The final day completed, we celebrated with a fantastic Chinese meal in Hatchmere, not 5 minutes drive from the forest car park. Friday morning was all about getting packed up before taking one last hemispherical photo from plot 1 to complete the set. We have collected almost 50Gb of data and over 100 photographs covering 12 plots:

Plot 1: Coniferous (mainly scotts pine)
Plot 2: Mixed deciduous (sessile oak/sweet chestnut/birch)
Plot 3: Deciduous (sweet chestnut)
Plot 4: Coniferous (scotts pine/corsican pine)
Plot 5: Larch
Plot 10: Open coniferous (scotts pine)
Plot 11: Dense coniferous (corsican pine)
Plot 12: Mixed deciduous (perdunculate oak/sweet chestnut/birch)
Plot 13: Open deciduous (sweet chestnut picnic area)
Plot 14: Dense deciduous (mixture of 6 species)
Plot 15: Open deciduous (Beech)
Plot 16: Between 2 coniferous stands

Let the data processing commence!

Oliver Gunawan
8th July 2011