Old Growth Study

Savage River State Park, Md— 2019

In 2018, VWFG conducted an in-depth study of two “late successional forests” in western Maryland.  The inventory protocol was developed the Maryland Forest Service and the Maryland Chapter of The Nature Conservancy.  The resulting data and report provided vital content about a mature forest and how to expedite its development toward an old growth condition.  In addition to gathering information about slope, aspect, and disturbance, we measured the density, size, quality, and structure of the canopy, subcanopy, understory, and shrub layers and counted seedling numbers on one square meter plots.  Because these were late successional forests, an important element of the inventory included counting the number of standing snags and amount of coarse woody debris (CWD) on the forest floor – both hallmarks of an old growth forest.

We are now using this same inventory protocol to conduct “baseline” vegetational studies on old growth forests under conservation easement with the 500 Year Forest Foundation (500yearforest.org).  They will use this information to observe and measure change in the structure and composition of these forests over time.