Summer 2009 Harvest

The summer of 2009 will be an exciting time in Rhinelander. We will initiate our planned harvest of the FACE experiment following a protocol developed collaboratively between Michigan Tech, the USFS (Rhinelander), the University of Michigan, and the University of Nevada, Reno. The above- and belowground portions of the experiment will be harvested by block once the entire canopy has developed (all the determinate shoots have elongated). First, the trees will be cut at ground line and taken back to the field lab for analysis. Then, an excavator and commercial soil sieve will be used to recover most of the roots. This exercise will be a real adventure and the results should eventually be very interesting! Details of the harvest protocols and a schematic are available on our website (Details PDF)

If anyone has a need to collect data during the harvest or would like samples from the harvest, please complete the registration form for research requests on our web site http://aspenface.mtu.edu/reg.htm. These requests will be handled just like all the previous requests to conduct research on the site. They will be reviewed by the Executive Committee and approved unless there is some conflict with the official harvest protocol.

Having a brief description of the sample types needed and their purpose as soon as possible will facilitate a timely, coordinated harvest. A sample archive will be created, but its purpose is to fulfill requests for future needs that were unknown at the time of the harvest. Meeting current needs during the harvest will help ensure that the archive lasts well into the future. The Executive Committee will begin reviewing requests during a February 18, 2009 meeting. Early requests will be much easier to accommodate.

Sample that will be generated by the harvest include:
- leaves by annual height growth increment (HGI)
- stem cross sections every 1 m and at midpoints of HGI
- branches by order, composited across HGIs
- buds from all 1st order branches within each HGI
- coarse (> 1 mm) and fine (< 1 mm) roots by 10 cm depth increment, to 1 m depth.
- root free mineral soil by 10 cm depth increment, to 1 m depth

The Northern Forest Ecosystem Experiment (NFEE) is funded by the US Forest Service. The Aspen FACE Experiment is funded principally by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research. Additional support is from the USFS Global Change Program, Michigan Technological University, the Canadian Forest Service and the USFS Northern Research Station. For more information on this project, contact Dr. Andrew J. Burton (Michigan Technological University) at (906) 487-2566 or mailto:ajburton@mtu.edu, or Dr. Mark E. Kubiske (Northern Research Station) at (715) 362-1108 or mailto:mkubiske@fs.fed.us. For questions or suggestions regarding this website, please contact Janet Pikkarainen at mailto:jmpikkar@mtu.edu. Last updated: July, 2010