Why do West Coast trees grow so much bigger then East Coast trees?

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I doubt there is any single reason, but a multitude of environmental factors.
I tried to google and wiki answers but didn't find enough to answer my question.

Logging is going on in the North East, and is very profitable, with hardwoods and softwoods, but it really isn't worthy of the history channel, lol.

IDK, I guess to narrow down the question; Douglas Fir grows well, right here in western NY, but it doesn't grow 200+ feet, even if it's an old tree. Why?
 
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I bet that's a good part of it, but not all.
I wonder if the logging practices here played a big role.
And Hi Cobbleskill! I'm in Sanborn and if I recall right, you're a couple miles away, in Wilson?
 
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Yessir Brendon, I'm certain you are correct too.
Differences in seasons for sure! The 4- 5 months per year of subzero temps must radically slow growth.
 
The eastern seaboard had huge white pine, etc once , just that they were cut down hundreds of years before a axe cut old growth on the west coast and never had a chance to grow back. But trees on the east side never got a big as the wests since the last iceage anyways.
Milder climate on the west coast, alot more moisture from the warm Pacific trapped by the high mountain ranges. Thousands of years of organic acidic mulch built up making perfect growing conditions for giant conifers.

Willard.
 
short mild winters, looong spring,summer,fall. Lots of available water, mineral rich soils. That and the initial Canadians sing to the trees at night when we are all asleep.

Ok, the last thing isn't true. :)
 
You can only draw water up so high with capillary/ osmotic pressure. To get taller you need to take some of your water in at the top through fog drip. Redwoods grow best in valleys and basins where it gets foggy in the summer months. The hot inland air rises up, pulling in the moist ocean air, causing fog in the summertime.
 
Pa was once the lumber capitol of the US before the western expansion .They used the big white pines for ships masts,100 plus footers .A typical mast was 3 feet at the bottom and 2 feet at the top .

I recall reading about a huge oak maybe 125 foot clear span floated down some Pa river and floated to a ship yard in New York for either a man -o -war or a clipper ship . I'll bet it took them a month of Sundays to draw knife that thing out ,mercy .
 
As masts
During the age of sail, tall white pines with high quality wood were known as mast pines. Marked by agents of the Crown in colonial times with the broad arrow, they were reserved for the British Royal Navy.

The British built special barge-like vessels which could carry up to 50 pine trunks destined to be ship masts. The wood was often squared immediately after felling to fit in the holds of ships better (Ling, 2003). A 100’ mast was about 3’X3’ at the butt and 2’X2’ at the top, while a 120’ mast was a giant 4’X4’ at the bottom and 30” at the top. The original masts on the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) were single trees but later they were laminated to better withstand cannon balls.

Marking of large specimens by the Crown was very controversial in the colonies, and their de facto seizure was a point of great contention among the colonists and played a significant role in the events leading to the American Revolution. During the American Revolution it became a great sport for the patriots to see how many of the King’s trees one could cut down and haul off (Nizalowski, 1997; Sloane, 1965).

An unusual large, lone, white pine was found in colonial times, in coastal South Carolina along the Black River (far south of its normal range), and the king's mark was put upon this particular tree, giving rise to the town of Kingstree.



Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/eastern-white-pine-1#ixzz1Ff7CQ6dH
 
You ever hear of the story of Howard Hughes "Spruce Goose " airplane? Well from information I found large white spruce were used to build that airplane which came from the Pasquia Hills right here at The Pas Manitoba on the Saskatchewan border.

Willard.
 
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You ever hear of the story of Howard Hughes "Spruce Goose " airplane? Well from information I found large white spruce were used to build that airplane which came from the Pasquia Hills right here at The Pas Manitoba on the Saskatchewan border.

Willard.
The white spruce make nice carvings here in The Pas too.

Willard.
 
If history is correct for a period of time by royal degree the burning of wood was curtailed in London for fear they run out of lumber to make ships .As a result coal was used nearly choking out the inhabitents for a couple hundred years .

I remember as a kid nearly everyone burned coal .The stocker fed with forced draft blowers weren't to bad but the old gravity furnaces really put out the soot .What a mess .
 
There's a little trick to setting up the air on forced draft coal burners .The smoke should just show a very slight brownish color if the air is correct .White too much air, black not enough .

In a way if you think about it's kinds like setting a carb .
 
I was talking to a guy up in Humboldt county, Ca about the Sequoias and Redwwods 2 years ago, when I went over to climb them.

He said that we should not expect the new generations of trees to grow into anything like the oldgrowth forests.

" they were created under an unique set of circumstances that no longer exists"

I've been thinking a lot about that ever since.

The mature trees, both Sequoia and Redwood, have dead tops. To me that suggests that they no longer get water like they used to.

They used to cover large parts of the earth, fossilised sequoia have been found under the ice at Greenland.

Are we seeing the last end of their struggle to survive?
 
About these east coast big trees .Way back when they used to fall those big oaks from the great black swamp and somehow get them in the Ottawa river,then to the Maumee and to Lake Erie .Then into Canada to be sawn into lumber . Why they did it that way I have no clue .

I wouldn't doubt that the bottom of lake Erie might hold some sunken old growth about like lake superior .
 
To me the regrowth of natural forestation is interesting .

In Ohio for example it was once said a squirrel could traverse the tree tops from lake Erie to the Ohio river and never touch the ground . 200 years later the area I live in is maybe 20 percent wooded .However just let a piece of ground lay fallow for 20 years and it starts all over again,trees every where .Likely were 100 years to pass and it would look like it had never been cleared I would imagine .
 
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