Today I inspected several sick coast live oaks in Monterey, CA that were treated with fire mimicry one year ago. I’m happy to report that, despite the very dry summer and other factors related to climate change, these sick live oaks are showing clear signs of recover after just one year. Enjoy . . .
On Thursday, December 6, 2018 I’ll be presenting and discussing the fire ecology of the Central Coast at the Santa Cruz Public Library (224 Church St.) starting at 6:30 pm. Topics will include the California native people’s use of fire in land management, modern fire regimes, fire mimicry, and the role of climate change. For more information on this free event see: https://www.santacruzpl.org/news/permalink/793/
Yesterday I visited several coast live oaks in Woodside, CA that had been treated in March 2017 with fire mimicry. After about 1.5 years the oaks are generally showing a modest improvement, mainly in overall canopy greenness and increased density in the lower canopies.
The coast live oak above and the bigleaf maple below were treated with fire mimicry last year. I checked on their status recently. Here are the results. Nice to see noticeable improvement in both trees in just a single year!
Last year I treated four diseased coast live oaks in Portola Valley using a fire mimicry protocol. Here are the results. Three of the four diseased oaks are showing improvement in canopy greenness and fullness. One treated oak is not showing much change in the last year. Note that the fifth photo in this series is a nearby coast live oak that was not treated. It is showing no noticeable improvement in canopy health.
Two years ago I began treating these coast redwood trees growing in Oakland, CA using a fire mimicry protocol. Here are the results. The redwoods are showing noticeable improvement in canopy size and density after only two years.
Saving the redwoods isn’t just about keeping them from being cut down. It also requires that we tend them, as the California native people did for thousands of years!
Yesterday I inspected a grove of coast live oaks, some of them Indian-era (pollarded) trees, to assess their response after 3 years of fire mimicry treatments. The photos here show a pretty dramatic increase in canopy greenness and fullness.
Just curious – are the results and information I post here useful to any of you readers? I’m not much of an IT person and would rather focus on working in the woods, but people keep saying that blogs and social media are the best way to share this information. I dunno, I don’t get many visitors to the blog and almost never a comment. Anyone with an opinion on whether or not these results are useful, please feel free to like or comment.
Two years ago I treated a number of valley oaks in Alamo, CA using a fire mimicry protocol. Here are photos of the oaks showing their response over the past 2 years. As you can see, there has been a notable improvement in the density and size of the leaf canopies both in 2017 and 2018. However, the photos in 2018 were taken a bit earlier than the original photos, which could explain some of the difference in canopy density.
Or maybe I’m just a Photoshop magician! There is a way to find out . . .
As I’ve discussed previously (here), coast redwoods in many areas are showing symptoms of dieback, typically beginning towards the top and progressing downward. Drought and disease have been implicated in the redwood decline, but the true cause remains elusive. I suspect the decline is ultimately related to the altered fire ecology.
In October 2016 I applied fire mimicry treatments to a grove of coast redwoods in Alamo, CA that were in decline. Here are the results after two years.
For those of you interested in learning more about an ecological vs. pathological approach to Sudden Oak Death, please attend my talk and discussion on Saturday, October 13, 2018, 10 – 12 noon at Lyngso Garden Materials, San Carlos, CA. The talk is free but you must register at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sudden-oak-life-registration-50423488010
Sudden Oak Life by Lee Klinger 
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