Increase in road salt?!

[Parker]

What impact will this increase of salt being spread on our roads (due to the snow) have on trees?

 

Can we expect a lot of roadside trees to die due to reverse osmosis?? or to be an easier target for fungal pathogens as they will be under a lot of stress?

 

Any thoughts/comments welcomed

[Tom D]

Up here they chuck loads on every year, no ill efects.

[David Humphries]

http://www.treehelp.info/

 

 

Look at - Publications/Tree damage alerts/TDA130 A Slippery Slope

 

 

 

 

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Edited February 5, 2009 by Monkey-D

[Parker]

Cheers for that Monkeyd - looks like theres some useful stuff on there to read through when im bored!

[Nick B]

I used to work for Leicestershire county forestry Dept

we did a lot of work on the M1 in the Early 80s Planting in winter & thinning out in the Summer

we found that the closer to the road the more dammage

The salt used to burn the trees and then kill them

these where all young trees, the Mature trees did not suffer as much

[Nimby]

Gritting with salt is just one of the many problems facing urban trees.

 

The fact that we have seen a bad winter, from an gritting point of view, will probably have an adverse effect on a number of street trees, however, I suppose you could balance that up with the fact that the cold snap kills off a lot of pathogens. Maybe?

[detritus21]

I could imagine it could be more of a problem in the south of the country. In the North West the gritters are out alot normally anyway so don't think it will do much up here. I do think the colder winter will be better as it does help to kill off pests and diseases. A lot of diseases are blamed on the warmer winters we've had over the past 10 years or so.

[Bundle 2]

Forestry Commission Bulletin 101- De-Icing Salt Damage to Trees & Shrubs

 

 

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/publications.nsf/searchpub/?SearchView&Query=FIELD+CategoryInp+CONTAINS+*Bulletin*+AND+(salt+and+trees)&SearchOrder=4&SearchMax=0&SearchWV=TRUE&SearchThesaurus=TRUE