 Re: Soil subsidence and trees
This has been a good thread. I like seeing ideas put to the test.
When the guys were dabating elsewhere about whether removal of lower tree limbs makes a tree more top heavy or buffered, I thought about an experiment to put it to the test.
I'm planning to stack two box fans by a small pyramidal shape Douglas fir in our yard in a small grove of them. I can use a plumb bob over head, or a fixed marker near the tree top to record its vertical apex position with the fans runnning, WITH 100% CANOPY.
Then I can prune off the lower half, and if what the other tree guys say is true and those were buffering limbs, the tree top should move even farther away from that marker, and a second marker for the zero wind position. If the tree leans less with the lower limbs removed, it will show that the top heavy belief may be innacurate.
I alread took a torch to twigs on my madrone to prove it would not ignite after folks living around here talked about how flammable the foliage was. I couldn't ignite it until the torch dried the leaves into brown toast. Myth busted - for a landscape setting.
So with the tree soil thing, it was interesting to see how small or big an impact something like foliage reduction really has on soil - or doesn't have. |