by Joe Cross, Facilities Manager
Pine trees readily cross-pollinate. After WWII, tree biologists developed a faster growing and straighter pine tree from the historic Loblolly Pine. This new pine species became the basis for the new pine plantations or orchards that supply our timber needs by growing taller, faster and with a defined crown and fewer limbs as it grew.
Today few of these old, original pines remain. WUU has two magnificent specimens along the Parker/Ironbound Road property line. The girth alone of these two trees is over ten feet in diameter, giving them a diameter of over 3’- 4′, or wide enough for a tabletop. Such width suggests an age of over 100 years.
Compare the two old trees on the left with the two genetically modified trees on the right and note the thicker base of nature’s natural creation. We recently limbed these old trees to preserve them.