Fibre buckling or constriction - Opinions Please

[Gary Prentice]

As the title says, I can't make my mind up whether the growth is due to one or the other. The pictures are on the compression side of the trunk and the tension side has a quantity of small incremental growth strips visible for a metre or so above the protrusion.

 

Mallet sounding is inconclusive - to my ears.

 

Thoughts please

[detritus21]

My thoughts would be an inclusion of some description particularly as sounding hasn't identified anything untoward but fibre buckling is still a possibility.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

fibre buckles, very very normal in mature phase birches

[Gary Prentice]

fibre buckles, very very normal in mature phase birches

 

TBH that is my theory but due to what cause. My heads filled with bending theories of hollow trees, moments of inertia and all the other biomechanics etc so I'm puzzled as to why this occurs.

 

Not a dense canopy - so low wind loading, the tree is in a row and protected by larger/denser canopies so shouldn't theoretically be exposed to high stresses.

 

Writing this now, I'm wondering if the adjacent high canopies may be causing an increase in wind speed rather than providing shelter!

 

My ignorance is frustrating me:blushing:

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

dont let it frustrate you, I remember Claus (Mattheck) discussing this recently saying something about birch being crazy bastards because of some part of their make up that makes buckle and adaption to it part of their natural order

[Gary Prentice]

:lol:I can imagine that is a pretty close repetition of his words too, after seeing and talking to him at Loughborough. A remarkable man.

 

If birches sacrifice defence mechanisms for faster growth, may it be a case that strength is sacrificed to a degree, with adaptive growth formed as and where necessary?

 

So much to learn.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

:lol:I can imagine that is a pretty close repetition of his words too, after seeing and talking to him at Loughborough. A remarkable man.

 

If birches sacrifice defence mechanisms for faster growth, may it be a case that strength is sacrificed to a degree, with adaptive growth formed as and where necessary?

 

So much to learn.

 

but your mind is working down the right roads, youve got the measure of the reasons.

[TTP]

Is this not caused by being strangled by washing lines or stakes and straps being on to long, I've seen this before people put all sorts in trees

[peatff]

Might it just have been damaged as a sapling and healed over ?

[Gary Prentice]

Judging from the surrounding trees, it's a long time since it was a sapling. Photo's don't demonstrate it's size well. Location negates constriction really or would be surprising.