Eric is that spoon getting heavy yet??
Just a quick post as i finalise my packing for the fortnightly slog to the southeast corner.....Its late-ish and my weekend has been fragmented to say the least.
Treelore is quite correct when he says that there are more important things than cutting into the canopy with a chainsaw....a great many of us myself included have spent a great deal of time perfecting what we do to the above ground parts of trees..how much to cut, where to cut when to cut what to spray so on and so on....We have only really ever looked at the roots when it comes to deciding if the tree is unstable due to root loss or dysfunction, very very few of us have developed a good understanding of just what the heck is going on in the soil, between the plant and the myriad of other living organisms.
This topic sugar water for trees good or bad, really by its title misses the real issue about what is happening in the rhizosphere...the micro universes between the plant (trees) and the soil food web (and that includes the physical and chemical struture and processes in the soil).
What I have tried to point towards is the usefulness of sugar solutions as part of much bigger and comprehensive program of soil works aimed at reinvigourating that universe down below.....I am
not suggesting that we should all go out and throw bags of sugar around (though you might want to give that a go in your vege patch
)
What I am saying is that as Arborists we should have a working understanding of the soil food web and how it relates to the different vegetation communities we encounter in our regions. We should all know what the importance of fungal and bacterial ratios is, how and why it can effect tree health, longevity and vigour. We should all understand the absolutely fundemental part the living organisms in the soil play in all of teh biological cycles that at school were taught to us as if they occured devoid of any organic living elements at all.
WHY?
Because then we can actually begin to offer our clients total plant health care, we can actually approach severely declining trees and see beyond the chop and drop option that formed the basis for tree work 20/30yrs ago....there will always be a place for the removal of trees, for the formative pruning of trees for the appropriate species selection and planting of trees.....chainsaws will always be a part of tree work....no question.....But if we are to learn
anything from the growing realisation of the appauling consequences of our impact on the environment around us it should be that releasing
more carbon into the atmosphere is
not a good idea. (When you cut down and chip up trees and leave the ground exposed to the sun and elements it is a triple negative whammy in the carbon cycle)
I may have appered to have meandered off the simple topic somewhat but bear with me I'll bring this snowball around!!!
There are many ways we can manage trees in the urban environment, in soils that have been so massively transformed by the processes of human development that they bear hardly any resemblence to anything approaching a natural form or structure.....here's just a small selection
We can plant into these soils without alteration, without soil works the toughest most resliant species we know of and watch them very slowly struggle growing shortened troubled lives to be overwhelmed after less than 25% of their potential life span by the latest blight of pest.
We can create large engineered planters into which we plant the species we want knowing that they will be limited by the contained soil and root volume provided for them...huge pot plants, to be replaced in 20..maybe 30yrs (though more likely 10yrs)
We can argue for proper planning of significant green spaces in new subdivisions that will be excluded from civils and have at least 12 months of intensive soil works applied to them prior to any long term tree plantings.
We can apply comprehensive soil works to our existing urban forest (where its future growth is a sensible proposition) based not on astrology or I ching, or any snake oil but on the detailed microscopic assay of the soil food web in each location, and base our remediation work on those results....mush of our urban forest is literally clinging to edge of a decline spiral, and though we may not yet be able to precisely determine what each species in each and every region requires we do currently have sufficient understanding and knowledge to tilt the scales in favour of longer stronger healthier tree growth.
Everyone has choices to make all the time little choices big choices, all of us, we make up the communities in which we live and work, we elect the officials to office in councils and government yet we all very often act as if it were someone elses responsibility to effect change........
There are a great many ways to manage trees in the urban environment.....I know which way makes the most sense to me, and a small part of it will occaisionally envlove sugar water