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Expanding the Legacy of Research at the Fritz Wonder Plot, Big River, California: a Report to Save-The-Redwoods League

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Expanding the Legacy of Research at the Fritz Wonder Plot, Big River, California: a Report to Save-The-Redwoods League Expanding the Legacy of Research at the Fritz Wonder Plot, Big River, California: A Report to Save-the-Redwoods League Matthew Gerhart Recommended Citation: Gerhart, Matthew. 2006. Expanding the legacy of research at the Fritz Wonder Plot, Big River, California: A report to Save-the-Redwoods League. Mendocino Land Trust. Mendocino, CA. This report was produced with support from Save-the-Redwoods League. The views and findings contained within are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of Save-the-Redwoods League. Copyright is owned by the Mendocino Land Trust. Save-the-Redwoods League has been granted the right to reproduce, translate and otherwise use any and all of the report for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes. Through the license terms of this work you are free to copy, distribute and display the work under the following conditions: Attribution: you must attribute the work to Matthew Gerhart, Save-the-Redwoods League, and the Mendocino Land Trust. Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. For any reuse or distribution, you must include the above license terms of this work. © Mendocino Land Trust. Permission required for uses with commercial, non-educational, or non-editorial purposes. 1 Expanding the Legacy of Research at the Fritz Wonder Plot, Big River, California 2005 Project Report August 2006 Matthew Gerhart Big River Program Manager Mendocino Land Trust With the Partnering Participation of: The California Department of Parks and Recreation & University of California Cooperative Extension And Financial and Project support from: Save-the-Redwoods League 2005 Measurement Team: Greg Giusti, RPF, Matt Gerhart, M.A., Dan Porter, RPF, Roger Sternberg, RPF, & Michael Wells, PhD., with assistance by Louise Young and Laura Prival Report on the 2005 Fritz Wonder Plot Project Mendocino Land Trust “To stand in this 105-year-old forest is to make one wonder over the power of nature – the rain, the sun, the soil – to heal a wound. This young forest lacks the majesty of the climax forest of redwoods which it has replaced and which, in time, it will duplicate and, quite possibly excel in grandeur. But the young forest exemplifies the spirit of youth, the urge to grow bigger & stronger. In its youth this stand carried on a battle quite different from its present battle. And from it we possibly can learn something about man’s battles from childhood to and beyond maturity.” —Emanuel Fritz, May 6, 1963, after examining a photo taken in 1953 of the Wonder Plot Introduction In 2002, with the help of Save-the-Redwoods League as well as over 20 conservation organizations, a dozen state and federal agencies, 17 private foundations, 70 businesses and over 1,400 private donors, the Mendocino Land Trust (MLT) acquired 7,334 acres of redwood forest timberlands in the lower Big River watershed and transferred the property to the California Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR). With this acquisition and transfer, an Agreement of Terms and Conditions was signed that permanently dedicated the property to estuarine and wildlife protection, as well as recreation consistent with that protection. It further set a new goal for the forest, specifically, “to support late seral forest characteristics and associated natural functions.” Up to this time, Big River had experienced a 150-year history of intensive timber management, with one unique exception. In 1923, Professor Emanuel Fritz of U.C. Berkeley successfully set aside a grove of “the best and oldest second growth of the entire redwood region” at Big River, for the purposes of ongoing studies of redwood forest growth. From 1923 through 1983, Dr. Fritz conducted decadal surveys of redwood survivorship and growth on the one-acre plot, establishing one of the most complete records of older second growth redwood to date. The plot was named the “Wonder Plot” for its outstanding growth over those decades, with volume figures Fritz called “astronomic, even for California Redwood.” A follow- up measurement was performed in 1995 by a group of researchers from Humboldt State University. Today, the second-growth redwoods at the Fritz Wonder Plot are approximately 147 years old, with a number of residual old growth trees intermixed. 1 Report on the 2005 Fritz Wonder Plot Project Mendocino Land Trust Project Objectives The purpose of the 2005 Fritz Wonder Plot project was to continue the monitoring work of Professor Fritz in order to extend the growth record into the later stages of redwood stand development, as well as to foster additional investigations into redwood ecology at Big River. This report lays out the results of the year’s work. Specifically, tasks for the project included: 1) Compiling and standardizing all existing data on the Fritz Wonder Plot, 2) Re-measuring the plot to expand on existing growth data by a decade, 3) Convening redwood researchers at Big River to discuss proposals for future research directions and management strategies for the plot, and 4) Reporting data, findings, and recommendations for further study to project partners. The Legacy of the “Wonder Plot” The Big River Watershed is located in the central section of California’s Coastal Redwood forest belt, and is part of the extensive tier of forestlands extending north from Marin and Sonoma into Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. The watershed extends over 181 square miles, draining from the heavily corrugated uplands of the coast range to one of the longest tidal estuaries in northern California. Land cover in the watershed is dominated by redwood forest but grades into Douglas fir forest and oak woodlands to the east. There are reports that Big River’s name came not from its size as a waterway, but from the size of the trees originally lining its banks.1 It is no surprise, then, that river logging came to the watershed soon after the Gold Rush of the 1850s. The remarkable old growth of Big River’s lower terraces and hillsides was quickly cleared and The Fritz Wonder Plot is located in the Big River transported by water to the new town of Watershed about 100 miles northwest of San Mendocino, where it was milled to produce the Francisco (source: Google Maps). lumber needed to grow boom-era San Francisco. At this time, probably in 1858, a riverside bench approximately 8 miles upstream of the river’s mouth was cleared of its old growth and opened up to the sunlight. Subject to 1 Mendocino Land Trust, Big River Acquisition Pamphlet, 2002. 2 Report on the 2005 Fritz Wonder Plot Project Mendocino Land Trust regular inundation from floods, the bench provided fertile soil for vigorous redwood re- sprouting. Within years, thousands of small redwoods were likely growing among the few remaining and scattered old growth too small or too gnarled to provide timber.2 Sixty-three years later, the stands had matured into a thicket of redwood and alder. It was at this point, in 1921, that Berkeley Forestry Professors Emanuel Fritz and Woodbridge Metcalf happened upon the ground that would later become known as “Fritz’s Wonder Plot.” At the time, the region’s timber companies were largely focused on clearing the remaining selections of old growth redwood timber from their extensive holdings. It was common practice for companies to divest from their heavily-cut former timber lands, often for conversion to pastoral and residential uses. Second growth redwood was generally not considered a viable lumber product. Professor Fritz, who had been trained in the German forestry techniques of sustained-yield production, was a fervent believer that second-growth redwood could in fact become a viable product. He tirelessly advocated for North Coast timberland owners to hold onto their cut-over lands and invest in more sustainable forms of timber management. While he and Professor Metcalf set up the boundaries of the one-acre plot upon seeing it in 1921, it was not until two years later, when he returned to Big River to pursue a cutting experiment on the timber yield of second growth, that he decided to map and measure the plot. Woodbridge Metcalf in the Wonder Plot, June 1921 (source: Fritz- Fritz reports: “Little did I think then that I would ever Metcalf photographic archive, U.C. see the plot again, much less remeasure it myself in Berkeley). 1933, 1943, and 1955…I have been on the plot nearly every year since 1923 and hope to make what will likely be my last measurement in 1963.”3 In fact, he saw it and measured it many times after that. He completed decadal measurements until the early 1980s and saw the plot and its adjacent acreage permanently protected by Georgia Pacific for the purposes of research on redwood growth and yield. After his death, Fritz’s major publication on the plot, “Twenty Year’s Growth on a Redwood Sample Plot,” was followed up by Humboldt State University researchers Jerry 2 Emanuel Fritz, “May 6, 1963, after examining a photo taken in 1953 of the Wonder Plot.” Handwritten note, Collection of Emanuel Fritz, courtesy of Barbara Fritz, 1963. 3 Emanuel Fritz, History of the “Wonder Plot” on Big River, Mendocino County, California. Unpublished typewritten document, 4 pages, Collection of Emanuel Fritz, courtesy of Barbara Fritz, undated (~1960). 3 Report on the 2005 Fritz Wonder Plot Project Mendocino Land Trust Allen and John Stuart working with foresters Jere Melo and James Lindquist.4 They summarized the findings of their 1995 measurement in “Seventy-Two Years’ Growth on a Redwood Sample Plot: The Fritz Plot Revisited.”5 By the 1960s, research at the plot had produced a host of new information. Fritz relates its contributions thus: “The Wonder Plot to date has already yielded valuable data on natural mortality; natural pruning; diameter; height and volume growth; loss due to wind throw (or other cause); the change, downward, of crown class; ground vegetation, soil deposition by floods, and the tree’s adjustment thereto.”6 By this time, it had also become abundantly clear that second-growth redwood was not only viable as a product, but in fact one of the most vigorous and productive timber species known.
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