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Woods Whys

Woods Whys: Sapwood and Heartwood


Woods Whys: How Do Trees Heal Wounds on Trunks and Branches?

Somehow trees put up with all manner of injury and assault during their lives. They have to: they are rooted in place and cannot move to avoid injury. Whether it’s ice- or wind-stripped…

Woods Whys: Can I Fertilize a Forest Like I Fertilize a Garden?

Forest soils certainly benefit from the addition of plant nutrients. Elements like nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, and magnesium are the building blocks of leaves, twigs, trunks,…

Woods Whys: Acorns and Weather

Last fall when acorns were falling out of the oak trees by the thousands, a neighbor said we could expect a hard winter. Presumably the deer needed lots of acorns to last them through the…

Woods Whys: Self-Pruning Branches

I’m interested in learning more about how trees self-prune. How does a tree “decide” that a branch is no longer useful? Think of it as nature’s cost-benefit analysis.…

Woods Whys: Needles vs Leaves

Why Do Evergreen Needles Look So Different From Deciduous Leaves? Ask anybody to draw a leaf and damn few would draw a pine, spruce, hemlock, or fir needle, and even fewer would draw the green…

What Is Forest Fragmentation and Why Is It A Problem?

Forest fragmentation is the breaking of large, contiguous, forested areas into smaller pieces of forest; typically these pieces are separated by roads, agriculture, utility corridors,…

What is a Forest Stand (and Why do Foresters Seem so Stuck on Them)?

In assaying wooded land, foresters observe, measure, describe, and map the forest, delineating it into smaller areas – or management units – known as stands. In this way, a forest…

Woods Whys: Why Is It So Hard To Grow Street and Yard Trees?

Let’s face it: trees are better off in the woods. Although forest trees – like their more urban counterparts – face many threats to growth and survival, at least in the woods…

What Determines How Tall a Tree Can Grow?

A tree’s growth is based, in part, on competition from its neighbors. Its first priority is to gain access to the sun, and in a forest up is the only way to go. (An open grown tree will…

What are those Blisters on the Bark of Balsam Firs?

Those bulging cysts on the otherwise very smooth, gray-brown bark are a distinguishing characteristic of balsam fir trees. They’re all over most fir stems. Aside from the really young…

Self-Grafting Trees

This tree seems to have had a branch or a second tree growing from it, then it died, but then it seemed to have grafted itself back. Would appreciate learning more about this. Jackie Lyman,…

Is Soil Scarification Good or Bad for the Woods?

Although the word is related to scarring – something you’d think we’d want to avoid – soil scarification [pronounced scare-ification] is a legitimate silvicultural…

Woods Whys: Why is There a Tree Growing Out of This Tree?

Let’s begin with the original lower tree, which appears to be one of several similar-looking dwarf cultivars of white spruce. These are very common in the nursery trade, prized for…

Woods Whys: A Sawyer’s Lament

We milled a bunch of beautiful-looking white pine logs the other day and found that many boards had red rot in them. Can you tell me more about red rot? Red rot is the local name for a common…

Woods Whys: Can Forests Prevent or Mitigate Floods?

Healthy forests play an absolutely vital role in moderating water movement over our landscape. Although forests cannot prevent large floods outright, they certainly do minimize the frequency,…

How Can I Tell if My Woods are Old Growth?

Old-growth forests, sometimes simply called “old growth,” are just that: really old woods. Accordingly, they are marked by the presence of exceptionally old, typically…

Why do Some Spruce Trees Appear Reddish in Winter?

Those reddish spruce needles you see adorning some mountaintop spruce trees are dead, killed by freezing. They are a flagrant indication that the host tree could not stand the weather. Such…

Do Stressed Trees Produce More Seeds?

Even those who say they don’t know the first thing about trees are likely to appreciate the fact that giant trees emerge from tiny seeds. Really, what sort of grump doesn’t smile at the…