Solomon Gamboa Pioneer Landscapes LLC Pionersprouts.com [email protected] Caesar Creek-Forests from the Soils Workshop-Recap Ceasar Creek Gorge Trail, located at the tailwater parking lot We started with a quick discussion on how ancient valleys carved by rivers and their tributaries much older than the last glacial period ended (17,000 years ago) have worn away our Ordovician limestone/shale formations creating slopes too steep for much of the glacial deposits to stick. These slope conditions preserve our residuum soil, soil formed in place from weathered bedrock as opposed to soil transported by glaciers, water, or wind. Due to the shallowness of the soil on these valley hillsides, likely due to constant natural erosion of soil on slopes so steep, the bedrock is very much near the surface. We could notice limestone, which breaks down much slower than our gray shale, laid throughout the surface of the soil, and on upturned trees you could see much limestone pulled up by the roots. This shallow rocky soil residuum soil supported circumneutral (6.5PH-7.5Ph) adapted species, you could also call these our alkaline tolerant species. These were Bur Oak, Chinquapin Oak, Shumard Oak, Blue Ash, Shellbark Hickory (leaflet of 7 with shaggy bark), and Ohio Buckeye. PH Generalist such as Red Oak, Bitternut Hickory, Sweet Pignut, Sugar Maple, Black Maple, and understory species of Hornbeam, Blackhaw viburnum, and spicebush were present throughout. IF you fallow the rivers of this water shed and their tributaries and you locate the valley hillsides that run parallel, you can find different variations but very consistent formations of this above forest type. I call it our Upland Alkaline Forest Variation, and have written about it extensively on this blog post. These soils we walked were Eden-Fairmount with an average depth of 12”-36” before hitting either lithic or paralithic bedrock. lihtic in this case inferring that the bedrock was solid and impenetrable by roots, paralithic inferring less solid and penetrable by roots. As we reached the high, flat elevation we initially walked through some acidic poorly drained glacial till that was in early successional stage of what would be the Pin Oak-Red Maple-Green Ash forest type. We saw how the high water table on the acidic soil allowed for saturated soil tolerant specie to thrive, different from our local flood plain species which dominate in intermittently saturated, alkaline soils. The water table as we took notice, allowed for the habitat creation of the upland ponds as one only had to dig a foot or so down to reach water. This poor drainage was created by the glaciers depositing soils in a flat manner filling drainage ways developed before the last ice age. So we notice the that creeks/dry runs on top of the hill were cutting through deep soil deposits with little to no limestone present, but as the creeks/dry runs flowed down the shallow residuum soil hillsides it exposed layers of limestone demonstrating the depth of the glacial deposit vs the shallow rockiness of the residuum hillsides below. These soils were Cincinnati Silt Loams, in the 5.1 ph range. As we progressed down the trail, we noticed how we were at a meeting point of 3 different soil conditions, with a mix of poorly drained, and well drained acidic glacial till on top of the hill allowing mixing of Pin Oaks (Swamp forest species) with Red Oak and White Oak (Better drained Acidic Soil Species) with upland alkaline soil forest variation species like Chinquapin Oak and Bur Oak. That narrow line of great mixing was owed to being at the edge of where the glacial deposit couldn’t stick so well to the quickly descending valley hillside leaving areas of more so alkaline, near acidic glacially deposited soil. Further down the trail, after talking about acidic soil indicators (black gum, Black Oak, White Oak, and Pignut Hickory) we went out into the man-made tallgrass prairies growing atop the spill way. Here I pointed out, due to poorly drained hydrology, the unmowed prairie had progressed into early successional swamp forest with Arrowwood Viburnum, Pin Oak, Sassafrass, Shagbark Hickory, Green Ash, and Red Maple pioneering into the unmaintained areas of the prairies that hadn’t been mowed probably in the last 8 -10 years. This demonstrated how even after we log a forest, and change the hydrology a bit in some cases, and perhaps even compact the soil, the prairie can provide an ideal successional habitat to the former forest types of that soil especially in cases where there is still local genotype mother trees still near the site. Back into the forest we saw Sweet Pignut with a leaflet of 7, a highly palatable hickory species that acts as a generalist locally but is more common in acidic soils, and I commented on how at the ridge of these valley hillsides the Flowering dogowood finds some kind of light exposure niche and is able to reproduce abundantly there. Down the back into the valley hillsides we saw more of the upland alkaline forest variation, chartaericzed by rock limestone shallow soil with grey clay produced by our grey shale, and since this hillside faced west, it was stunted by not only shallow soil, but a hot slope/aspect. This forest was mature, yet it looked very broken due to the slow growth/inabaility for the canopy species to close the canopy leading to a very diverse dense understory of prickly ash, and bladdernut at lower elevations, and flowering dogwood, black haw viburnum, eastern redbud and other midstory species like hornbeam thriving at higher elevations. This area also had an abundance of summer forest wildflowers such as Eutrotchium purpureum the woodland joe pye weed and Desmodium species due to the long periods in which the canopies are broken letting sun hit the forest floor. At the bottom of the hill we walked what I hypothesized was the old riverbed of Caesar Creek that had changed elevation and location over time creating a rocky bottomland of soil that due to the elevation and likely dam engineering no longer flooded as often as it may in the past. This flat bottomland topography differed from the high flat glacial tillplain in that it was alkaline and received water flow from the uplands where as the high till plains only received water in the form of precipitation. This promoted Shellbark Hickory, and a dominance of Black walnut which is a PH generalist that thrives in higher moisture soils, but not saturated soils also accompanied by Blue Ash, Sycamore, Box elder Maple, Black Maple, Chinquapin Oak, and Bur Oak. The shallow rocky soil, even though at a flat elevation, still promoted some light hitting the forest floor allowing fore specie like our Wild bergamot to thrive in the partial shade created by large gaps in the canopy. On the way back to the parking lot, we just got close looks at the Blue Ash, Shellbark hickory, Chinquapin Oak, and smooth hydrangea clinging to the limestone/shale residuum soils as they meet the river. Use the provided spreadsheets and this recap, to help extract the lessons from the lecture. The spreadsheets are key to remembering the different soil PH and parent soil associations.
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