Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

Modern cellular phones are pretty amazing devices. Most of us use a fraction of the capability of these phones while some take advantage of more of the features.

One of the more unique things in my mind are the GPS (global positioning system) capabilities.

Our family has an app on our phones called Life 360. It’s a way to keep track of each other. You can see where another family member is if you wish to call them. If they are coming to your house you can see how they are doing, very handy when daughter Sarah comes up from Onalaska.

Last year and this year members of the Buckthorn Brigade used GPS on their phones to do a survey of Barsness Park identifying where the buckthorn was.

A forester from the Minnesota DNR set up a grid with numbers covering the whole park. Using a phone you would go to a specific spot on the grid and report what you saw regarding buckthorn on the grid map. The spot was numbered and you would align a target mark on the phone screen with the spot. When they were aligned you were at the right spot.

Once there you would take a picture and describe the infestation level. If it had been treated you reported that as well. (If you had worked with various treatments you could tell it had been treated) And you would identify trails or roads nearby which would facilitate machinery access is that was used for treatment.

Some of that recording was miserable work because the spots the grid were in some hard to get to places. The grid spot could be on a steep embankment, in a creek, or on the midst of a heavy patch of buckthorn that was nearly impenetrable.

The survey was completed and assembled by the DNR and it is interesting to see. It was a good picture of the heavy infestation in the park at the time.

A similar technique is going to be used to identify ash trees in the city of Glenwood now that we know that emerald ash borer is in the area. The city needs to understand the size of the potential problem by determining how many ash trees are in the city, where they are and their current condition.

WSN, the city engineering firm, has developed a mapping app to be used in a survey of the city that will be taking place soon. A person or a team of people will walk streets and mark the location of ash trees and their condition.

With this particular app a person will get close to the tree and push a tab on their phone that will identify the tree’s exact location on GPS. Next the surveyor will measure the trunk size at chest level and rate the condition of the tree. A note can be added if it appears that the tree is stressed or perhaps already infected. A picture can also be taken and attached to the entry.

The city will need this information to develop a management plan. Some trees may be infected and need to be removed to prevent other neighboring trees from being infected. A map after a survey is completed would show that.

Similar technology is being used for the city’s survey of water connections, something required by the state to determine how many homes have lead pipes in their water systems.

People were asked to take pictures of their water connections with their phones and send them in to WSN. Those were downloaded on a city map and the city can look at the map and see where potential problems are. Many people sent in those pictures and that saved the city money for not having to send a person to each home to observe the connection themselves.

Cellular phones can be a distraction at times and a welcome companion when help is needed. But seeing how they can be used in things like buckthorn and ash tree surveys is a usefulness I never anticipated!