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Do Trees Communicate?

Started by Ron Scott, November 10, 2013, 11:16:35 AM

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clearcut

There is also research that indicates trees stressed from insect or fungal attack, reflect different wavelengths light in the infra-red. Nearby trees will increase the level of tannins and other protective substances that they produce in response to reflected infra-red.

One method of identifying tree stress is to use IR photography. Stress shows up much more quickly and clearly than with the visible spectrum.
Carbon sequestered upon request.

thompsontimber

Yes, trees can communicate and in fact develop friendships.  No, I didn't learn this in forestry school, nor from any online videos, blogs, forums, or social media.  I actually learned this in the field, through a "real world" experience over 15 years ago, and its one of those lessons that stuck with me through the years.  We were nearing completion of a timber harvest and cutting near the adjacent property, approaching the property line.  Suddenly the buncher operator was met by a not-so-sweet little old lady with a shotgun.  She informed him that she must insist that he stop cutting those trees.  He attempted to reason with her and explain that he was cutting only what he was supposed to cut and that the property line was clearly marked. Her problem was not that we were cutting her trees, but that we were hurting her trees.  They told her so.  See, her line trees were friends with the trees that happened to be on our side of the line.  In cutting those trees, her trees were greatly hurt and would surely die as a consequence of the death of their friends.  They grew up together, swayed in the wind together, and were now suffering together at our hands.  Naturally, we were in no position to argue with her logic.  After all, the trees talked to her, not us, and she had the gun.

fishpharmer

I've dealt with several trees that were real "mother's." ;)
The video may oversimplify nutrient transfer which seems very different from communication.  Keep in mind I am no forester.
Built my own band mill with the help of Forestry Forum. 
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SPIKER

Remember a while back on some show (science discovery type thing) where they did tests on plants in a isolated box next to a plant no tests only instrumentation.   When one plant was damaged both plants stressed the same when they were within a few feet of one another  :o  There were electrical and physical/chemical changes in both of them.   They did a test on Milk Weeds that were even more impressive but sure cant remember who did it now & was many years ago..
8)
mark
I'm looking for help all the shrinks have given up on me :o

John Mc

I have a sister who communicates with trees.  She's gotten some interesting messages from them over the years.  I can't really verify the tree communications, but what she's gotten from animal communications from various pets of ours and of others has been pretty astounding (in some of these cases she didn't know the owner or the pet beforehand).
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.   - Abraham Maslow

thompsontimber

John, I'm glad the trees haven't been communicating with me that way.  Being the mass tree murderer that I am, it might weigh heavy on my conscience!  While I've been guilty of talking to a few trees, fortunately none have talked back yet.  While I view myself as a good steward of the forest and consider many of the forest management activities to be necessary and good, I suppose if it were up to the trees I'd be grasping at a Kevorkian defense!

John Mc

My sister is quite a character in the tree/animal communication regard.  She does recognize that people are going to take trees for their own use, and doesn't seem to have a problem with that. 

She's says it's all about your attitude when taking them, and reminds me to occasionally remember to thank the trees before I take them down. I do try to remember to do that every once in a while.  I have to admit, when I'm battling the buckthorn, "thanks" isn't exactly foremost in my mind.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.   - Abraham Maslow

SliverPicker

I remember in college we where told that they do communicate.

Here is an interesting observation I've had.  With our mountain pine beetle infestation here in NW Colorado the usual scenario is this;  The trees get attacked by the beetles in spring and try to pitch them out.  That summer there is much pitch visible and beetle gallery holes if you look closely enough.  The tree stays green that summer and that winter and then abruptly all the neeldes turn red and, of course the tree dies.  Now, roughly 5 years into this, the reaction is different.  The trees get attacked in the spring/summer like before, but now instead of abruptly turning red the following year the individual trees just show signs of stress.  There is a very slight yellowing of the needles if you haven't been watching you wouldn't even notice the color change.  Then the crown of the tree starts to lose a percentage of its needles.  It just thins slightly.  The trees seem to stay this way for a period of time.  Some of the trees finally succumb to the stress, but others seem to be able to hold on for at least 2 years.  This new reaction seems to only have been happening for the past two years so I will keep watching to see how it plays out for these lodgepoles. 

It definitely seems that the trees have reacted in some way to the beetle onslaught and don't get wiped out in such a short time period as with the initial infestation.  Or maybe the beetles are now only left with more resistant trees that weren't killed in the early stages of the epidemic and maybe these tree just naturally react differently.

Any insight anyone?

We've lost 650,000 acres of lodgepole pines just in this county since about 2007. 
Yooper by trade.

Mark Wentzell

Trees don't just communicate, they also fight back. Ever fell a tree in the winter? They throw snow on you.  :D

I don't think as a society we fully appreciate that trees are living things. Last year at about this time a skinned coyote fell off the back of someone's truck and it made the news, if that had been a bundle of firewood no one would have noticed.

I have no doubt in my mind that there is more going on in the forest than photosynthesis, we just don't see it.

RPowers

Quote from: Mark Wentzell on January 19, 2014, 04:50:44 PM

I have no doubt in my mind that there is more going on in the forest than photosynthesis, we just don't see it.

x2

I think that there are many layers/dimensions of reality that we blind to but other living things interact with as part of their normal design. I'm trying to teach my children this kind of thinking. Our perception of reality isn't the end-all-be-all of the universe. 
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Magicman

I believe that all Sweetgum trees know that I hates them.   ;D
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Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

bama20a

Quote from: Magicman on January 24, 2014, 05:09:55 PM
I believe that all Sweetgum trees know that I hates them.   ;D
:D :D :D,
It is better to ask forgiveness than permission

gologit

I don't know if trees communicate with each other but I can tell you for sure that I communicate with them.  It's a one way conversation and sometimes what I have to say isn't very nice. If I have one go a little sideways on me, or sit back on the bar, or hit something and wind up looking like a candidate for Diamond Match I've been known to communicate with the tree at great length and volume.  The tree never says much back,though.  :-\
Semi-retired...life is good.

mesquite buckeye

They might if you are not careful. :-\
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

John Mc

Quote from: gologit on January 28, 2014, 07:16:29 PM
... I've been known to communicate with the tree at great length and volume.  The tree never says much back,though.  :-\

Maybe the tree figure actions speak louder than words?
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.   - Abraham Maslow

Magicman

I know for a fact that logs communicate.  On too many sawjobs I have seen the last log refuse to load or turn properly.  Just be a real pain in the rear.  I tell the customer that they had watched what happened to the other logs and did not want to become lumber.   ;D
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

David-L

There are generational stands of Poplar as they are all connected by root rhizomes. Seems there was an article about that in Northern Woodlands sometime back I believe. I have to agree that the is more to the picture that we don't know about. One of my concerns is Whole tree chipping and how there is never any slash left to de-compose and sequester carbon and nutrients for the future growth of our forest. I know there is a formula for mass left per acre but on most of the jobs I have seen the forest floor is as clean as can be. without Hummus and decomposition we drain our soils. Roosevelt once said " our nations wealth is in our soils". Foresters, please give me some input on this as most of the foresters around here only want to work with these big operations and the volumes they can cut are bigger paychecks for them if paid by the % of mass taken out. IMO this is not sustainable. Thanks

                                                                                   David l
In two days from now, tomorrow will be yesterday.

mesquite buckeye

Could you be talking about trembling aspen? With those trees, large areas are really one organism, as they form large clonal colonies by rhizomes.

Regarding the whole tree chipping issue: Any slash left in the forest will decompose over a relatively short period leaving very little as a percentage as humus. The idea that this will sequester carbon simply doesn't happen. I would be more concerned long term with whole tree removals causing nutrient deficiencies over time. I don't know that this has yet to be documented. Certainly if excessive nutrient removals become a problem, forest fertilization would need to be practiced. This is already happening in the South to increase wood yield, not necessarily for deficiencies.

The whole issue of carbon sequestration and forests regarding supposed human caused "global warming", which has now become "global climate change" is questionable since there has been no warming for over 15 years and running.

Forests outside of the tropical rain forests, typically are very easy on the land compared to other land uses, with low erosion rates and beneficial effects both for removal and remediation of pollutants and for the oxygen they produce making them very beneficial for society to maintain. The economic activities generated from forest products feed a lot of families and contribute to societal financial stability. To classify an entire practice as bad based upon supposed and unsupportable outcomes is a mistake. We have a lot of societal problems requiring well thought out solutions not based largely upon emotional arguments.

Any economic activity that benefits a landowner with forest land gives an incentive to that person or organization to leave that land in forest and not convert it to another use. This needs to be the first consideration when any policy decisions are to be made regarding any forest practice.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

David-L

Thanks for the response, another thing that was always taught to me by oldtimers in the northeast is that all that slash you cut up is where some of the best re-gen happens as the browser's like deer and moose don't want to fight to get there food unless its really a cold year and they are eating alot to keep warm. I just can't see how a clean forest floor with no debris will benefit the forest in the future. As a farmer its all about organic matter, hummus, carbon,etc. Yes families need to eat and people need to work but at what cost for future generations. I am not a purist or a tree hugging fanatic just a small scale forest contractor and farmer trying to leave things better than when I found them.

                                                        David l



 
In two days from now, tomorrow will be yesterday.

jorelp

Really interesting topic here.
I must say it's a breath of fresh air to learn so many foresters have an understanding that goes deeper then trees being a simple raw material. It's quite obvious people are understanding trees, plants, and every living thing has greater complexities then our education institutions would have us believe.
good on those who deeply respect the trees and thank them for what they give us. this lack of understanding and disrespect for nature is why the world is hurting so much. 
I'm very impressed by the comments and attitudes on this forum.

Building off the grid, organic gardener
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wdmn

There's a pretty approachable book on this topic (more generally about plants) by an Israeli scientist called "What a Plant Knows"; it goes through the five human senses and compares them to analogous processes that occur in plants. Some of the discussion is about chemical signals that are transmitted between plants.

http://www.whataplantknows.com/

chain

I think my trees were calling me. Strange but true, twice in the last two years have I been led through some power straight to where someone stole my trees. A half mile hike up a rugged ravine and rocky glade and sadly, I found the remains of one of our white oak trees. Same thing happened last year on the opposite side of the property. I 'knew' something had happened, I walked again, straight to it, very disgusting.

I've had several trees that appear to be embracing, one I call the love trees, they've grown together. I have a persimmon not over 2"diameter that curls around a 10" short-leaf pine, and adorns the pine with delicious persimmons!

Magicman

Now that is getting romantic.   smiley_love
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

Gary_C

There's no love lost between a spruce and an apple in my yard. The apple tree is the aggressor and is growing toward the spruce and the spruce is trying to get as far away as it can.

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

chain

Quote from: Magicman on December 28, 2014, 09:12:59 PM
Now that is getting romantic.   smiley_love

I knew you would like that; did I ever tell you about Indian thong trees?  ;D

Herb

The book "The Secret Life of Plants" presents some interesting results of scientific experiments conducted on plants.

chain

As we say, "the forest is much more than trees"; there's a wealth of knowledge to be learned from the forest. For example, medicinal plants..........what a subject!

Ron Scott

I once heard an old Indian chief talk about how the trees talked to one another. Very interesting, one would think that the trees were alive.
~Ron

gaproperty

Quote from: Mark Wentzell on January 19, 2014, 04:50:44 PM
Trees don't just communicate, they also fight back. Ever fell a tree in the winter? They throw snow on you.  :D

I don't think as a society we fully appreciate that trees are living things. Last year at about this time a skinned coyote fell off the back of someone's truck and it made the news, if that had been a bundle of firewood no one would have noticed.

I have no doubt in my mind that there is more going on in the forest than photosynthesis, we just don't see it.
I am a logger and cut down lots and plan to cut more using extreme management practices. Many tests have been done proving stress and nice soft music makes plants grow better then hard rock music etc..... I do believe there is much more going on in the woods then we think. I am in conflict with taking a life and trying to make some money. Maybe someday we will find out that it was very cruel what we did to the trees just like cutting the feet of an animal would be.  I do not believe their interpretation of pain to physical damage is the same as ours or I would not be cutting them but I certainly am putting a lot of thought into doing as little damage as I can.
Ray
lostcaper.com
youtube.com/c/LostCaper

gaproperty

Quote from: David-L on January 31, 2014, 06:26:06 AM
There are generational stands of Poplar as they are all connected by root rhizomes. Seems there was an article about that in Northern Woodlands sometime back I believe. I have to agree that the is more to the picture that we don't know about. One of my concerns is Whole tree chipping and how there is never any slash left to de-compose and sequester carbon and nutrients for the future growth of our forest. I know there is a formula for mass left per acre but on most of the jobs I have seen the forest floor is as clean as can be. without Hummus and decomposition we drain our soils. Roosevelt once said " our nations wealth is in our soils". Foresters, please give me some input on this as most of the foresters around here only want to work with these big operations and the volumes they can cut are bigger paychecks for them if paid by the % of mass taken out. IMO this is not sustainable. Thanks

                                                                                   David l
Quote from: Mark Wentzell on January 19, 2014, 04:50:44 PM
Trees don't just communicate, they also fight back. Ever fell a tree in the winter? They throw snow on you.  :D

I don't think as a society we fully appreciate that trees are living things. Last year at about this time a skinned coyote fell off the back of someone's truck and it made the news, if that had been a bundle of firewood no one would have noticed.

I have no doubt in my mind that there is more going on in the forest than photosynthesis, we just don't see it.
I am a logger and cut down lots and plan to cut more using extreme management practices. Many tests have been done proving stress and nice soft music makes plants grow better then hard rock music etc..... I do believe there is much more going on in the woods then we think. I am in conflict with taking a life and trying to make some money. Maybe someday we will find out that it was very cruel what we did to the trees just like cutting the feet of an animal would be.  I do not believe their interpretation of pain to physical damage is the same as ours or I would not be cutting them but I certainly am putting a lot of thought into doing as little damage as I can.



Whether they communicate, have feelings, like friendship etc... it doesn't really matter because man has an inflated sense of self worth and every living thing including our own species can be destroyed to satisfy our greed. Here in Canada to many big companies are destroying the forest while the government won't let any small sustainable forest operator even cut a tree. Environment/sustainable forestry to often is just a public relation word so I do not have a lot of hope for our forest long term.   

   
Ray
lostcaper.com
youtube.com/c/LostCaper

beenthere

I've been cutting, seems like for a long time, and I haven't heard a scream yet.  ;) :)
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

mesquite buckeye

Some of those tall pines scream pretty good on the way down. :snowball:
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

ST Ranch

Interesting topic! Do trees communicate?  I believe they do but not in the traditional way [talk] and often not just as individuals.
The more I think I learn about trees, the forest and the forest ecosystem, the more I realize how complex they are and how closely related and dependant we [humans] are on trees and the forest. [Forest and grassland complexes]. And also I learn how little I really understand their complexity.

Do they communicate with us - yes,  as an example - trees that are unhealthy or dying tell us something about their health and the health of the ecosystem around them, by looking a bit farther at the dying tree, we may be able to determine the cause, maybe disease, bugs, overstocking, drought, mechanical damage - what ever - then looking farther  we may be able to see changes in the surrounding ecosystem that may be affecting their health and the state of the surrounding ecosystem, the health of the surrounding ecosystem then may tell us things about the bigger picture, changes in rainfall or the water table, changes to air quality etc.

Do they communicate with each other - of course - for example; tree growth characteristics vary by tree density in a stand [limbyness, growth rates, natural thinning, shade tolerance, nutrient fixing, etc]. There are numerous other examples of how trees grow in relationship to one another.

Do trees and the ecosystem communicate? - Again yes, variations in ecosystem structure [plant communities] can most often clearly be seen as we walk through a forest or grassland - these changes are usually a function of solid, moisture and nutrients, so again the ecosystem is able to communicate to us about conditions of that site.

And on a more philosophical level [or off the wall view], given that we human composition is made up of about 60% water [and about 65 % oxygen-a large part as water], and accepting that forests and associated trees and plants provide, clean and store O2 and water, then it could be said we as humans are very directly connected to forest ecosystems and their function.  Furthermore, given the current state [declining health] of our forests, it could be said trees are communicating to us as to our long term future health and longevity.

Just my nickel's worth.
Tom
LT40G28 with mods,  Komatsu D37E crawler,
873 Bobcat with CWS log grapple,

Joe Hillmann

There is a PBS NATURE documentary called, "What plants talk about"  If you have netflix you can find it there and it may also be on PBS.com. 

It doesn't focus much on trees but mostly on smaller plants.  It shows many of the ways that plants communicate, with other plants and with insects.  It also shows how they are aware of damage, there surroundings, their own family.  In some cases plants of the same type grown from the seed of the same mother plant will leave each other alone and share nutrients and plants of the same type but from different mothers will compete with each other for nutrients.  In the redwood forests it has been shown that a mother tree can produce more sugar than it needs through photosynthesis and is able to through its roots and fungi give its extra sugar to smaller trees that are growing in the shade and wouldn't survive otherwise.

It is a really interesting documentary and makes you realize plants are much more animal like than you would otherwise think.

beenthere

And there are some people who are out looking for that assurance that the plants are having a conversation with them..  ::)
;D
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

mesquite buckeye

Was that you we saw huggin out there on that tree? ;D :snowball:
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

ST Ranch

I hug them when I wrap a diameter tape around them[the tree] during timber cruising, or possibly when I am bending around the tree to line up my bottom cut for a humboltz or lining up the back cut [getting old ]and need the support of the tree to keep my balance.
tom
LT40G28 with mods,  Komatsu D37E crawler,
873 Bobcat with CWS log grapple,

IndianaJoe

Clint Eastwood sang "I talk to the trees, BUT THEY DON'T LISTEN." 

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