Coring was done with a hand held half-cylinder auger (8cm diameter) to insure cores with little vertical compression, thus the root and soil profiles would be intact. Cores were taken from 6 small primary creeks within four major creek areas:

Two primary creeks within Sweeney Creek, right and left branch (5 years fertilized - since 2004)
Two primary creeks within West Creek, right and left branch (used as reference since 2004)
One primary creek within Clubhead Creek, right branch (one year fertilized - 2009)
One primary creek within Nelson Creek, left branch (reference)
 
In each primary creek, 6 sites in creek bank tall-form S. alterniflora were chosen along the length of the creek, 3 on each bank. Each site was co-located with a cross-sectional transect so that the elevation of the S. alterniflora can be determined (site # refers to white PVC transect pole #) .Latitude and longitude were noted. At each site, we took 2 cores using the auger: 1 for root and shoot biomass centered on a single plant and 1 for geotechnical properties taken in an adjacent area.

For the biomass core, the aboveground stem(s) centered above the core was cut and stored, and the belowground core material was sectioned at the following intervals:0-5 cm, 5-10cm, 10-20cm, 20-30cm, and 30-50cm. These samples were brought back to the lab for washing and measuring of longest stem length, aboveground dry weight, and belowground dry weight of separated roots, rhizomes, and detrital material.