Why can't we have square trees?

wulkowicz

It would be smart if we could have square and rectangular trees. Grow them to the lunber size we needed; cut them off the length we wanted; debark them and send them to the lumber yards...

Maybe we could get a patent?


Bob Wulkowicz

treevet

Send the sapling up thru a metal 2x4x8 foot casing, then when the growth years fill up the casing cut it off on either side and start building your house, skyscraper, etc., or whatever. Kind of like a wood sausage . There you go Bob, go get the patent.

TreeDimensional

OK, I think we finally found the guy that's trying to stick the round peg into the rectangular hole.

The only issue I see as being difficult to overcome is, how do we get the form off the trunk? I believe a torch might be counter-productive.

There have been lots of home owners and old school arborist that have used a tree as a cement form, that didn't work to well either.

Good luck with your experiment wulkowicz, sounds like treevet might like to assist you, I'm sittin' this on out.

Pigdog

The government probably wouldn't allow using square trees to build with. Where's the grade stamp?

TreeDimensional

They would be easy to quarter saw, without a bunch of waste. LOL

newguy18

hmmm intrsting but i'm also sitting out on this one.

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old schooler

bigshea13

either that or we could just go back to the old fashioned log cabins. cabin skyscrapers. thatd be interesting. giant linkin logs...man they were fun. kept my feeble mind occupied for a long time

bigshea13

funny that they never tried using a cellulose based paste cast...like bricks. put the entire tree in a huge grinder and add something sticky that hardens

TreeDimensional

After chatting with Bob last week, I think he might have something else in mind. The principle of a round structure (like a tree or cylinder) being more suited to withstanding multiple external forces, compaired to the one or two dimensional forces that a two planed structure ( ie 2X4).

I just can't figure out where he is going with this, but I'm going to guess that it has something to do with the existance of object in a three dimensional world.

Or maybe I should just shut up!

wulkowicz

The whole purpose of this thread is to open up.

Why didn't nature create a different structural shape for trees? Two hundred million years is a reasonable proof, even for Ekka, of successful design evolution.

And actually, your first thought is an excellent one; circles (cylinders) are very resistant to external forces that can't be predicted. Wind blowing on a flat surface has more to push against than the flow-around quality of a cylinder (circle). So, the "unsquare" tree has an advantage.

But advantages aren't purposes. They can be significant in their additional numbers, but the tree didn't likely put together the vascular cambium design because wind was a worry.

If external forces (wind, perhaps), need to have less effect, why aren't trees triangles?



Bob Wulkowicz


PS: Those of you sitting it out; try to get a little agitated. Thinking isn't all it's made out to be, but having your own personal epiphanies can be a memorable joy.

TreeDimensional

Oh! Like the circle of life thing. The rings of a tree are like the circle of life, not unlike the minister performing a marriage ceremony. The preacher gets to the part about the symbolism of the ring....... never mind, that doesn't seem to work for nearly 50% of North Americans.

If you think about it, the significance of a circle is the ease in which materials can transfer around the circumference. Compared to the restrictions at the square corners of a square or rectangle. Now a parallelogram or a triangle would be most difficult to maneuver.

I must be the type of person to be living in a circle. I spin my wheels (circle) and never seem to get anything finished. (continuity of perpetual work). But hopefully I am on a spiral up to my ultimate career path.

Eric Frei

What time period is considered reasonable for trees to make evolutionary changes?

Well, lets look at Australia, we have those fire hardy eucs and trees with proteoid root systems so they cope with the poor soils.

But they were the last to appear, out of nowhere as the climate changed to arid and the fires swept the land.

This site is fantastic.

Australian rainforests - Botanic Gardens Trust - Sydney, Australia

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Treelore

Evolution adapts for not always the right reasons, only influnces and instinct. Many reasons for evolution are counterintuitive to survival for the species. Peacocks are a classic example of this. Trees are not neccesarily immune to this form of inverse evolution. Just because trees are the way they are does not necessarily make them right nor fully evolved.

treevet

If we re going to get serious on such a silly topic as this premise, then how about reaction wood being just a fairly adequate evolutionary reaction?

Treelore

what would you consider to be a better response should you be in control treevet?

treevet

I was just being sarcastic, Treelore. This is a way better response than square or triangular stems, or anything else I can think of. Trees, having evolved from living in water would have none of these stresses/forces in there.

newguy18

Yep i'm staying out of this one as i don't believe in evolution.

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old schooler

jbhigh

Grow your own... square watermelon - Slashfood

wulkowicz

Yes, we can tell.


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And actually as commented on in an earlier post, reaction wood is a reasonable structural modification of the basic principles of tree growth without needing another solution. When a limb is far enough away from a needed structural accommodation, it returns to the generally circular shape.

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I'm offering a mind puzzle; the premise isn't silly. We live in a world of familiar surroundings, so the unfamiliar catches our attention and may make us think about a difference in the two encounters. We don't have any square trees, really we have only round ones, so I ask it as a unfamiliar question and provide an opportunity to think outside the box.

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I was truly irritated when the best available books on cambium said cambium division violated Errera's Law, but never went on to say why. First, I had to look up Errera, then I had to understand the violations, and finally I had the mind puzzle about why trees were in defiance. Since no one seemed to provide the answer, I wandered off to find a small windmill.


I don't want to cut off the flow of your thinking aloud. And lectures are difficult to an independent audience anyway, so discuss or argue amongst yourselves for a moment--


enjoy


Bob Wulkowicz

StrictlyPalms

The form would be hinged with a buckle, or 2 piece with heavy strapping that could be removed. Although you'd have to make the forms out of some pretty stout stuff to keep the growth from bursting the form.

Now, as for not believing in evolution, how do you expect to get into Darwinheaven?

Usually, if it can be thought up, it can be created, we may not see a use for square trees now, but in 100 years? Who knows.

Also with the way genetic engineering is going maybe we can come up with perforated trees that regrow the 2x4's removed from them.

Hell, we can grow new skin for someone from a culture, why not huge vats of cellulosic fibers that can be cut down into needed sizes? Like giant Hard Tofu.

I bought an old book of short Sci-Fi stories a while back. It was the NOVA award winners from 1910-1920. One of the stories that struck me was about a scientist who had data storage devices strung all over the world that could communicate with each other, each one storing a little bit of information.
If this guy could think up a basic internet at the turn of the century just think where we will be in another 100 years.

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Eric Frei

Bob, a found a document I'd be surprised you didn't have. I called it celldivision and it's attached to the post down the bottom.

Also started a thread which is right up your alley.

http://www.treeworld.info/f29/how-tr...html#post22829

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treevet

The top of the thread the guy's talking about growing " square trees " to make lumber for posts and such then Ekka segues right into cell growth.

OK I m along for the ride.

stoneknight

well if they can grow square watermellons, i do think that a square fir tree could be a plausable chalange

Eric Frei

LOL, that's not why I do it. I do it coz I'm unsure of this wulkowicz's blokes lurking pattern.

Does he read everything or does he just stick to his pet topics etc. So I figure laying the cheese on the track well trodden by him is safest.

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newguy18

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old schooler

treevet

I m just playing dumb, a favorite pastime of mine. I think everyone knows what is going on as I do.

bigshea13

ask we speak scientists are printing tissue that could later be used to fabricate living organs. maybe not evolutionary but definately revolutionary

wulkowicz

Jeez, and here I thought I was being clear about encouraging us all thinking outside the box. Look, one author even found a square watermelon!

If you can find a lurkin' pattern, go with it. These days it's much more worrisome to be in someone's stalking pattern.


I named the thread to be provocative--and possibly humorous. (Am I required, BTW, to use the extra "u" in this site.)

I can't quite read everything yet because your site has its idiosyncrasies about informing me of new posts. And I was just now able to open Ekka's video--I'm running on a new Mac and needed a few new plug-ins.

In my other posts, I flagged my intentions and I said I wasn't interested in lecturing. The "square watermelon" contribution showed someone was out there thinking and surfing. What more could I ask for? I was busy writing when it popped in ahead of me. My compliments, jbhigh.

Back to the thread:

I'm offering a new consideration of tree growth that not only de-mistifies the basics, but explains the reasons for the Errera violations--and steps forward into new techniques and tools for the problems that vex us.

Treevet said: It is literally impossible to make a perfect cut sometimes, given the location of woundwood around a dead, still remaining, branch sometimes. Shigo used to say, if you cannot make this cut given the tools you have, it is time to make some tools that will make the cut. To me it is the attitude and feeling (love for trees) that you carry into that tree that makes you perform the best cut for the situation (and carry over to everything you do in that tree) that is as important as literally making that cut. (My emphasis)

I presented the beginnings of my concepts and the new techniques and tools at the ISA Conference in Salt Lake City. Stupidly, I took the last lecture slot thinking there'd be time afterward for discussions. It was my first lecture and I didn't know people had planes to catch and no one would stick around--except for the three guys who still beat cheeks anyway.

I haven't finished the Ekka video, but its struggles and frustrations are understandable. We have not yet given our arborist audience a coordinated and comfortable explanation of tree growth. And indeed it will include the answer to why we don't have square trees.

Thinking of me as pompous, or arrogant, or sly with pet projects does not help in internalizing your new knowledge about what we're discussing. I yam what I yam...

Find the flaws; pick it apart; I said this was a challenge. If I'm successful in expanding the box, future arborists will be climbing into trees with more tools than a chainsaw. (See Shigo below)

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BTW: Wasn't there a biblical comment about the above Ekka plan? "Blessed are the cheese layers for they shall inhairot the earth."


Anyway, I really do mean well, or at least I did. That's for you all to decide.

I also used the Shigo quote below at the conference and showed the new tools.


Bob Wulkowicz

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Eric Frei

To assist I have taken a screen shot.

You can see new posts with the New Post button on the left.

In the Quick Links drop down menu you have some options. I have circled the ones of most interest.

Mark Forums Read will basically wipe clean the New Posts. So if you have a heap and they keep coming up and you're really not interested in them well that button is the go, wipe the slate clean.

Subscribed Threads are threads you are subscribed to, either by posting or selecting them via Thread Tools.

Occasionally there are hiccups, dont know why but there are, rare but just like trees evolving maybe software has it's own ideas ... as far as cross pollination to Apple's from oranges your guess is as good as mine but I can see you have decided to deploy some genetic grafting (plug-ins).

And so the fight for dominance continues, it's not a matter of which is the better tree but which is most likely to adapt and be dominant, whether that be by evolution or divine power or money.

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treevet

How about this for thinking outside the box?

Guy starts threads with stuff like "....square tree stems" or "what if leaves were made of bubble gum?", etc. Then he just sits back and waits for all kinds of scientific, abstract, opaque and idiotic replies and appears to already know the good ones and ignores the bad ones? Makes one look pretty smart, no?

There s plenty for you to learn out there as well, I'm sure. There is so much that isn't fact, or is unknown.

If it is the teaching of arborists that is your purpose here and not just to condescend and/or entertain your ego then maybe prose like the "Certified Arborists are drunken pathogens" piece in the "Sentience in Trees" thread of yours might put your target audience off a little.

PS That good cop/bad cop stuff wears out quick even on stupid prisoners.