Promoting Symbiotic Relations Between Trees&Plants

[treeseer]

Speaking of negative factors, how big a hole gets drilled for the throughbolts?

 

A 1/4" hole holds a 3/16" cable. The holes callus well. No beetle issues here.

 

I like your hanging plants though--biodiversity rocks!

[jomoco]

If holes enlarge, add more cables Guy?

 

Kinda like a dog's been beat too often, and therefor cringes whenever opposing hands are raised.

 

How does the cable mfr feel about you distorting their cable ends and squishing the galvanized coatings off each distorted and bent strand mate?

 

Problems that need to be addressed prior to replacing a tried and true system with an excellent track record.

 

Jomoco

[daltontrees]

Oh, got you now... a workout for the branch attachments. I like it! The bowling balls would be fab too.

 

So how are the baskets suspended? Have you put a sling around the branches, or bolted them?

[jomoco]

Running bowlines attaching 3/8ths pullies almost exclusively, with sufficient slack to accommodate an estimated 3-5 years of girth expansion. The nylon cordage I used is strong enough to lift a 200 lb man off the ground without snapping. Each plant weighs about 20 lbs, maybe 30 when watered.

 

She throws an annual exotic plant club party. So simply showin up for some free food n drink makes annual inspections of my system a treat.

 

The whole harness is noninvasive, and the plants do bounce about in the breeze quite dynamically.

 

But it's an artificial cyclical branch burdening system. The exact opposite of the Cobra snake oil branch support systems.

 

An extremely important and entirely pertinent distinction if your goal is strengthening a tree/branch rather than weakening it to the point it's dependent on that system's integrity for life?

 

Jomoco

Edited April 15, 2014 by jomoco

[jomoco]

Anyone else watchin the bloody moon tonight?

[jomoco]

Trying to figure out what to call this system?

 

Arboreal Reaction Wood Stimulation Harness?

 

Symbiotic Integration Harness for Trees and Plants?

[jomoco]

Most interesting, but am I issinbg something? How are you planning to measure and analyse the results? Will you be cutting off the branches after a few years and measuring the growth increments?

 

How to measure and confirm reaction wood growth that's artificially stimulated?

 

Been playin about with methods of doing just that, at home, in me own tree.

 

I needed a way to bounce a few pounds about on smaller laterals, just under 2 inches diameter, powered by the wind.

 

One means of measurement would be the limb's height from the ground in a before and after sense.

 

Slapping together a contraption that I'll call a wind powered branch bouncer that weighs only a tad over 2 lbs was easy. It works well at exaggerating the branch's movement in the wind. It's also ridiculously cheap and easy to build one.

 

From thought to working prototype in a few hours today.

[jomoco]

Blown over by the wind.

[jomoco]

Tree's a Chorisia speciosa, or Floss Silk tree, also known as a wife beater tree!

[jomoco]

Now the hard part will be driving a steel stake into the ground from which to measure the exact distance from it and the bottom of the branch, before hanging the BB from it. A month afterwards unhooked, and 6 months afterwards unhooked, and so on.

 

If the Branch bouncer works? The limb should rise once the BB's removed?