Advise needed on Storm damaged tree, should it stay ?

[Wonky]

Good evening all.

 

as I'm sure there will be better peeps out there that know a lot more than I will ever know, I’m looking for some clarification on this tree, 

so storm Eunice is what did this, 2 large branches , the upper one being approx 16” diameter and the lower being 18” 

 

so the question is how safe is this tree now it’s lost about half of the main trunk, the tree is approx 70’ tall 

 

hopefully you can see from the  pics 

btw, that’s a 20” bar on a 036 in the last pic 

 

cheers

 

[Wonky]

14 minutes ago, peds said:

Despite the politics you describe, that looks like a great growspace. I'm sure there's a lot of exciting things going on. Can I ask where it is, does it have a name?

https://stanmerorganics.com

 

[peds]

Banging, nice one dude.

[agg221]

Can I throw a radical suggestion into the mix.

 

The trees are left to grow because they have no value. If the collective site buys a Dartmoor Dragon charcoal retort they would suddenly have value as feedstock to make biochar, which would both potentially improve yield and sequester carbon - which appear to be aims in line with the values of the site.

 

It's a labour-intensive process but if the material produced by the trees has value then that means they are more likely to be maintained (topped to harvest the feedstock) which would prevent the problem recurring.

 

Just a thought.

 

Alec

[openspaceman]

3 hours ago, agg221 said:

If the collective site buys a Dartmoor Dragon charcoal retort they would suddenly have value as feedstock to make biochar, which would both potentially improve yield and sequester carbon - which appear to be aims in line with the values of the site.

I'm glad you are on board with the biochar idea but there are plenty of cheaper ways of making it,

[dumper]

Been reading about bio char, not really the game changer people think and maybe very bad for the planet

[Stere]

Amazonian indians made it, as a part of terra preta for centuries seems to have worked well.....

 

 

 

Not sure if that means it will be as useful for the UK......

[peds]

16 minutes ago, dumper said:

Been reading about bio char, not really the game changer people think and maybe very bad for the planet

From an unnecessary increase of co2 perspective, or what? 

I've heard wonderful things about it, but I'm yet convinced that it's worth any more effort than my current compost and wood ash setup.

 

Seaweed is where the real gains are made, anyway. 

[dumper]

unessesary co2 production it doesn’t lock up carbon and seems to deplete the amount of 02 avaliable  

[openspaceman]

40 minutes ago, Stere said:

Amazonian indians made it, as a part of terra preta for centuries seems to have worked well.....

 

 

 

Not sure if that means it will be as useful for the UK......

Yes terra preta soils are still valued for their productivity  and do contain a lot of char like  content but there is still some debate about how they became more fertile than the surrounding land, the chances are the minerals came along with food imported from outside and that ended up dumped on the land. We of course have dumped most of our liquid waste with all it's mineral wealth out to sea via our sewage plants and rivers. The solid waste does get spread back onto the land but often contaminated with heavy metals and persistent organic compounds.

 

UK agricultural soils tend to have a high fertility status , often from bagged fertiliser, so unlikely to show the improvements claimed for  poorer soils abroad. Often soils become depleted by the export of a cash crop, taking minerals with it, while biochar does contain much of the minerals in the harvested biomass it cannot make up for what is inherently lacking in the soil. It is claimed it enhances soil microorganisms which could reduce leaching out of minerals.

 

Where it is made from a waste stream part of which would be normally composted ( bearing in mid soil organic matter is an important component of the soil as well as being a vast cycling carbon store) then it fixes carbon that would normally be quickly respired back to the atmosphere. A look at the current carbon cycle shows how the natural photosynthetic  activity fixes many times what we put into the atmosphere from fossil fuels but the decay and rotting cycle puts near enough the same back into the atmosphere, a relatively small intervention into this cycle by fixing with biochar, even though we would be talking about billions of tonnes, would begin to redress the balance.

 

Ideally it should be produced where heating is also required rather than the offgas flared off  in these open flame curtain devices but...

[Stere]

Wonder why its in the amazon but not found or highlighted  in other places around the globe ?

 

I'd of of thought similar processes would of occured in many other locations creating such anthropogenic soils, unless there is a specific component or technique used that only occured in amazonia.....

 

Seems there are some other examples

 

 

 

 

 

http://boden-des-jahres.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Action-Soil-of-the-Year_2013.pdf

 

 

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/events/SummerSchool_2004/files/Spar_antr.pdf

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Stere